Which is the longest river in the world?

The Nile is traditionally regarded as the longest river in the world, with a length of about 6,650 kilometres (some measurements give about 6,695 kilometres). It flows north through north-eastern Africa and empties into the Mediterranean Sea through a large delta in Egypt, near Alexandria and Cairo.

The Nile has two main branches:

The White Nile: the longer branch. Its most distant source is in the highlands of Rwanda and Burundi, and it flows through Lake Victoria (Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania), the largest lake in Africa. It then flows through Uganda and South Sudan.

The Blue Nile: it rises at Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands. Although shorter, it carries most of the water (about 80% during the rainy season) and fertile silt, especially during the summer monsoon floods.

The two branches meet at Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. From there, the Nile flows north through Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean.

The Nile basin covers parts of eleven countries: Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Eritrea.

The Nile was the lifeline of ancient Egyptian civilisation. The Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt "the gift of the Nile", because its annual floods brought water and fertile silt to the desert. Most of Egypt's population lives along the narrow Nile valley and delta. The Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, controls floods, provides irrigation and generates electricity, forming Lake Nasser. Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile, inaugurated in 2025, has caused disputes with Egypt and Sudan.

The Amazon in South America is the second-longest river (about 6,400 kilometres, though some recent studies claim it is longer than the Nile). It is the largest river in the world by volume of water discharged and by drainage basin area.

Other long rivers: the Yangtze (China, about 6,300 km, the longest in Asia), the Mississippi-Missouri (USA) and the Yenisei (Russia).

Why not the other options?

• ✗The Amazon is the second-longest but the largest by discharge.
• ✗The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia.
• ✗The Mississippi-Missouri is the longest river system in North America.