The river is great for collectors. As freshwater molecules flow along the landscape, gravity forces them to look for the lowest possible ground, where they clump together with other water molecules. The collected water quickly becomes a trickle. A trickle of streams come together to form streams, which then converge to form larger streams, eventually forming rivers.
A watershed is an area of land that drains all the water from a particular area into one point: where rivers meet the ocean. Watersheds can be large or small in size, depending on the landscape, and some can be large. Huge watersheds often form huge rivers.
The end points of several streams and streams and the beginning of a river are difficult to determine, but in order to rank rivers by length, they must start somewhere, and some arbitrary fabrication must be done to measure them. However, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, "the length [of a river] may be thought of as the distance from the mouth of the river to the farthest source of water (regardless of stream name), or generally considered the distance from the estuary to the source of the stream identified as the source stream." ”
So, here they are, from the Nile to the Congo – nine longest rivers in the world:
1. The Nile
The longest river in the world is different, depending on who you ask. Is it the Nile in Africa or the Amazon in South America? They are comparable in length, but in 2009, a study by the International Journal of Digital Earth determined that the Nile was a bit longer, at 4,132 miles (6,650 km). The Nile is also recognized by Guinness World Records as the longest river in the world. The Nile has two main tributaries, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, which converge in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. The Nile flows through Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, covering an area of 1,293,056 square miles (3,349,000 square kilometers) before emptying into the Mediterranean.
2. Amazon River
The Amazon flows through Peru, Colombia and Brazil. Although the Nile is officially the longest river in the world, many disagree with this assessment and insist that the Amazon is longer. Of course, it is the largest river in the world based on the large amount of water that is injected into the Atlantic Ocean every day; It produces more freshwater than the next seven rivers combined. It also has the largest watershed area — 2,400,000 square miles (6,300,000 square kilometers) — that covers almost 40 percent of the entire South American continent. Still, most researchers believe that it is only 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) long compared to the Nile's 4,132 miles (6,650 kilometers).
3. Yangtze River
Most of the world's longest rivers are in Asia, and the Yangtze River is the longest of them. It is actually comparable in length to the Nile and Amazon rivers, 3,900 miles (6,300 kilometers) long. It is also the longest river to flow entirely through a country's borders, flowing through one-fifth of China's land area, which accounts for 6.3% of the world's land area. The mighty Yangtze River has more than 700 tributaries and streams, and its 698,265 square miles (1,808,500 square kilometers) basin is home to one-third of China's population.
4. Missouri River
The longest river in North America and the fourth longest in the world originates in the Missouri River, flowing 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square kilometers) in the Rocky Mountains of the United States and two Canadian provinces. The 2,341-mile (3,767-kilometer) state of Missouri meets the Mississippi River, the second-longest in the United States, near St. Louis, Missouri, and is only slightly shorter than the Missouri River, whose waters together flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The river system flows through 32 U.S. states.
5. Yenisei River
The Yenisei River in Siberia is 2,167 miles (3,487 kilometers) long and empties into the Arctic Ocean and is fed by Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest lake in the world and one of the clearest. The 616-mile (992-kilometer) Serenge River originates in northern Mongolia, empties into Lake Baikal, and spits out of the lake the Angara River to become the Yenisei River. The Yenisei-Angara-Selenge River basin is the fifth largest river in the world at 3,442 miles (5,539 km).
6. Yellow River
China's Yellow River, also known as the Yellow River, is 3,395 miles (5,464 kilometers) long. Its source is in the Bayan Kara Mountains in central China, flowing eastward through nine provinces and emptying into the Bohai Sea. Its total basin covers 307,000 square miles (795,000 square kilometers), and archaeological evidence suggests that the Yellow River basin was the cradle of ancient Chinese civilization.
7. Irtysh River
The seventh longest river in the world is the Irtysh River System. The Ob River originates in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, joins the Irtysh River, originates in Mongolia, flows through China and Kazakhstan, and finally enters Russia. Together, the two rivers drain 1,154,445 square miles (2,990,000 km2) of land and are 3,360 miles (5,410 km) long.
8. La Plata-Paraná-Rio Grande
The Rio Grande joins the Paraná River, empties into the La Plata River, and eventually joins the Atlantic Ocean on the border between Uruguay and Argentina, making it the eighth longest river in the world and the second longest river system in the world in South America. The river system is 3,032 miles (4,880 km) long and has a basin area of 997,175 square miles (2,582,672 km2) in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Uruguay.
9. Congo River
The Congo River in west-central Africa is the ninth longest river in the world and the second longest in Africa. On the map, it looks a bit like a multi-limbed tree, but the furthest source into the Atlantic Ocean from its mouth is the Chambishi River high in the mountains of Zambia, which is 2,920 miles (4,700 kilometers) long. With a drainage of 1,550,000 square miles (4,014,500 square kilometers), the Congo River system is the second largest river in the world.