Rivers

Yorkshire Ouse

A continuation of the Ure, which rises at Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales, this river flows through York down to the Trent, with which it joins to form the Humber; it floods regularly and seriously

Orange

Also known as the Gariep, Groote, or Senqu, it rises in the Drakensberg Mountains in Lesotho and flows west, forming the South Africa-Lesotho and the South Africa-Namibia borders, also marking the southern edge of the Namib Desert, only passing through the city of Upington before it empties into the Atlantic at Alexander Bay

Limpopo

Formed from the Marico and Crocodile Rivers at the Botswana-South Africa border, it flows in an arc first northeast to form the Botswana-South Africa border, then east to form the ZImbabwe-South Africa border, then back southeast through Mozambique to empty into the Indian Ocean

Irrawaddy

Formed from the confluence of the N'mai and Mali rivers in the Tibetan Himalayas, it is the largest river of Myanmar, running straight south to empty into the Andaman Sea in a large delta

Amu Darya (Oxus)

Formed from the meeting of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, forming first the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, then Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, then Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, then Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, before it is lost into the desert before it can reach sea; in the past it has flowed into the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea

Humber

Formed of the Ouse and the Trent, at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, it flows to the North Sea from there as the boundary between East Riding and Lincolnshire

Paraná

Forming from the confluence of the Paranaiba and Rio Grande rivers in southern Brazil, it flows south into Paraguay, where there were once the Sete Quedas Falls, then forms the Brazil-Paraguay border until it merges with the Iguaza River, when it forms the Paraguay-Argentina border, then continues south until it merges with the Paraguay River and enters Argentina, where it finally merges with the Uruguay River to form Río de la Plata and empty into the Atlantic

Amur (Heilong Jiang)

Forming in Northeast China at the confluence of the Shilka and Ergune rivers, it forms the border between China and Russia, where it flows southeast and is joined by the Huma and Zeya rivers, before it turns north into Russia and empties into the Strait of Tartary dividing Sakhalin and mainland Russia

Mackenzie

Forming out of Great Slave Lake near Yellowknife in Canada's Northern Territories, it flows entirely through the NT (although its tributaries spread wider), passing the Canadian Shield hills, Great Bear Lake, and the Ramparts gorge, before emptying into the Arctic Ocean in a massive delta

Don

Known as the 'Tanais' in Ancient Greek, it rises at Novomoskovsk, 120 miles south of Moscow, and runs first southeast to Voronezh, then southwest to its mouth on the Sea of Azov; in antiquity it was associated with the Amazons and the Europe-Asia border

Mersey

Made up of the Goyt, Etherow, and Tame, this river flows through Merseyside and Cheshire to the port at Liverpool; it was historically the boundary between Cheshire and Lancashire

Madeira River

One of the largest tributaries of the Amazon, it is the third-longest river in South America, forming from the Beni and Mamoré rivers east of the Andes and flowing northeast along the Bolivia-Brazil border, then entering Brazil and flowing through the Rondônia and Amazonas states before it enters the Amazon just east of Manaus

Bristol Avon

Rising at Acton Turville in Gloucestershire, this river flows through Wiltshire, via Bath, to the Severn Estuary

Mississippi

Rising at Lake Itasca in Minnesota, it runs south to St. Louis, Missouri, where it joins with the Missouri River, then to Cairo, Illinois, where it joins with the Ohio, then south to empty into Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana; in all it passes through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana

St. Lawrence

Rising at Lake Ontario, it flows northeast along the NY-Ontario border and into Quebec, where it passes Montreal and Quebec City before emptying into its eponymous gulf in the Atlantic Ocean

Blue Nile

Rising at Lake Tana in Ethiopia, it loops within Ethiopia then heads west into Sudan, where it flows northwest to Khartoum where it merges with its White counterpart

White Nile

Rising at Lake Victoria, it flows north through Uganda, past Juba in South Sudan, then on to Khartoum in Sudan where it merges with its Blue counterpart

Rhône

Rising from a glacier in the Swiss Alps in the canton of Valais, near Oberwald, from where it flows into Lake Geneva, where it forms the Franco-Swiss border, then on through Lyon before it discharges into the Mediterranean Sea at Arles

Brahmaputra

Rising from the Angsi glacier in the Himalayas in Tibet, it flows south through the Himalayas into Arunachal Pradesh, from where it follows the Assam Valley into Bangladesh, where it becomes the Jamuna and merges with the Padma and Meghna to empty out into the Bay of Bengal at the Ganges Delta

Ebro

Rising in Cantabria, it flows east through Navarre and La Rioja towards the Pyrenees, then through Zaragoza in Aragon, then east through Catalonia into the Mediterranean

Rio Grande

Rising in Colorado, it flows south along the San Luis Valley into New Mexico, where it passes through Taos, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces, then through El Paso in Texas and Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua, Mexico, from where it forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas, before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico in a small sandy delta

Tyne

Rising in Cumbria at Alston Moor, with the north and south rivers converging in Northumberland, and flowing into the North Sea at South Shields in County Durham; it was a major coal route

Thames

Rising in Gloucester, passing through Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Essex, Kent, and London into the North Sea

Rhine

Rising in Graubünden in the Swiss Alps, it forms parts of the Swiss-Liechtenstein, Swiss-Austrian, Swiss-German, and Franco-German borders, and flows through Cologne before it empties into the North Sea in the Netherlands

Paraguay

Rising in Mato Grosso in Brazil, it runs south near the Brazil-Bolivia border then into Paraguay, which it divides in half between the semi-arid Gran Chaco region and the eastern forested regions, then receives the Pilcomayo at Asuncíon, after which it flows southwest forming the Paraguay-Argentina border before merging with the Paraná and flowing towards Rio de la Plata

Yellow River

Rising in Qinghai Province in western China, in the Bayan Har Mountains, it follows the 'Ordos Loop' across the country before emptying into the Bohai Sea at Shandong Province, in Northeast China; due to its unpredictability it has the names 'China's Sorrow' and 'Scourge of the Han'

Uruguay

Rising in Serro do mar in Brazil, it runs in a gentle loop west to form the Argentina-Brazil border, then south to form the Uruguay-Argentina border, after which it merges with the Paraná and flows into the Rio de la Plata

Dee (Wales)

Rising in Snowdonia, it forms part of the border between England and Wales, and flows down through Chester until it discharges into the Wirral

Zambezi

Rising in Zambia, it flows south through eastern Angola and Namibia, then east across the northern Botswana, from where it forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe before flowing through Mozambique and out into the Indian Ocean

Okavango

Rising in central Angola, where it is known as the Cubango, it flows southeast towards Namibia, where it turns east and forms much of the border, before cutting south across the Namibia Panhandle into Botswana, where it forms a massive delta in the Moremi Game Reserve and drains into an endorheic swamp in the Kalahari Desert

Aras (Araxes)

Rising in eastern Turkey, it flows east into Armenia, passing near Yerevan, then southeast through Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave, after which it turns northeast to form the Armenia-Iran and Azerbaijan-Iran borders before it enters Azerbaijan to join with the Kura and empty into the Caspian Sea

Kura

Rising in northeastern Turkey in the Lesser Caucasus, it flows northeast into Georgia, then turns southeast to run past Tbilisi and on into Azerbaijan, where it receives the Aras then empties into the Caspian Sea

Yukon

Rising in northern British Columbia, it runs northwest through the Yukon Territory and into Alaska, where it runs west through the whole of the state to drain into the Bering Sea

Vistula

Rising in southern Poland in the Silesian Beskids, in the Carpathians, it divides Poland in half and passes through Krakow and Warsaw on the way to the Gdansk Bay, where it empties into the Baltic Sea

Essequibo

Rising in the Acarai Mountains near the Brazil-Guyana border, it flows straight north through Guyana to empty into the Atlantic near Georgetown, receiving various rivers along the way including the Rupununi, Potaro, and Mazaruni

Murray

Rising in the Australian Alps, on the VIC-NSW border, it flows west to form much of this border, past Albury and Mildura, until it briefly formed the VIC-SA border and then runs southwest through SA to empty into the Indian Ocean

Danube

Rising in the Black Forest, it flows through ten countries, more than any other river - Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine - before it discharges into the Black Sea in Romania and Ukraine; it was known in antiquity as the Ister

Volta

Rising in the Bobo-Dioulasso highlands of Burkina Faso, it forms part of the boundary between Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Burkina Faso, before emptying into the Gulf of Guinea at Ada in Ghana; it is formed of its Red, White, and Black parts

Dee (Aberdeenshire)

Rising in the Cairngorms, part of the Grampian range (making it the highest source in Britain), from where it flows down to Aberdeen and out into the North Sea

Oder

Rising in the Czech Republic, it flows north through Poland, then forms the Poland-German border, before discharging into the Szczecin Lagoon and the Gulf of Pomerania in the Baltic Sea

Gambia

Rising in the Fouta Djallon Plateau in north Guinea, it flows northwest into Senegal, then west into its eponymous country, which is formed of little more than the river banks, and out into the Atlantic Ocean

Niger

Rising in the Guinea Highlands, it flows northeast into Mali, then at Timbuktu turns southeast into Niger and down to the Mali-Benin border, then into Nigeria where it empties into the Gulf of Guinea in a massive delta

Ganges

Rising in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand out of the confluence of the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda rivers, it then flows south towards the plain of Northern India, where it crosses the country and enters Bangladesh, becoming the Padma before emptying into the Bay of Bengal

Elbe

Rising in the Krkonoše Mountains in northern Czech Republic, it runs through Bohemia then into Saxony in Germany, flowing through Dresden, Wittenberg, and Hamburg on its way north to the North Sea

Loire

Rising in the Massif Central in the Cévennes range, it flows down through Nevers to Orleans, then west through Tours and Nantes to Saint-Nazaire, where it flows into the Bay of Biscay

Tocantins

Rising in the Pirineus, in the state of Goiás, it then flows through three other states towards the Pará River, through which it empties into the Atlantic; it runs together with the Araguaia, with which it converges downstream

Salween

Rising in the Qinghai Mountains on the Tibetan Plateau, near the headwaters of the Mekong and the Yangtze, it runs southeast through Yunnan Province and the Three Parallel Rivers area , where it is known as the Nujiang, then turns south to flow through eastern Myanmar, briefly forming the border with Thailand, and empties into the Andaman Sea

Columbia

Rising in the Rockies of British Columbia, it first runs northwest then turns south into Washington State, where it continues south until it turns west to form most of the Washington-Oregon border, and continues west to drain into the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon

Colorado

Rising in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, it flows southwest across its eponymous plateau into Arizona and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the AZ-NV border, from where it turns south towards Mexico, where it empties into the Gulf of California at the border of Baja California and Sonora

Garonne

Rising in the Spanish Pyrenees, it flows down to the French border and then north via Toulouse and Agen towards Bordeaux, where it meets the Girande and flows west into the Bay of Biscay

Indus

Rising in the Tibetan Plateau, it flows west through Jammu and Kashmir in India, then along the whole length of Pakistan to empty into the Arabian Sea near Karachi, in Sindh

Yangtze

Rising in the Tibetan Plateau, it runs down through Qinghai to the Tibet-Sichuan border, then into Yunnan, Chongqing, and Hubei, where it creates the 'Three Gorges' area, then receives the Han tributary in Wuhan, from where it flows through Anhui and Jiangsu into the East China Sea at Shanghai

Seine

Rising near Dijon on the Langres Plateau, it flows through Troyes, Paris, and Rouen, until it discharges into the English Channel

Severn

Rising near Llanidloes near the Ceredigion/Powys border, in the Cambrian Mountains, this river the flows through Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Gloucestershire, then out into the Bristol Channel

Ohio

Rising near Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, it flows south and west along the Ohio-West Virginia border, then forms the Ohio-Kentucky, Indiana-Kentucky, and Illinois-Kentucky borders before joining with the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois

Dnieper

Rising near Smolensk in Russia, it flows south through Belarus and Ukraine, which it forms the border between, before flowing out into the Black Sea

Volga

Rising northwest of Moscow, it flows east past Dubna, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, then south past Samara and Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), before it drains into the Caspian Sea at Astrakhan

Meuse

Rising on the Langres Plateau, it flows north past Sedan into Belgium, where it is joined by the Sambre, then forms part of the Belgian-Dutch border, before splitting into the Afgedamde and Bergse rivers, the latter of which discharges in Belgium and the former in the Netherlands

Trent

Rising on the Staffordshire moors, then down in Derbyshire where it becomes the Derbyshire-Leicestershire border, then joining with the Derwent and flowing into Nottinghamshire, then Lincolnshire, then Yorkshire where it joins with the Ouse to form the Humber and flow into the North Sea

Mekong

Rising on the Tibetan Plateau, it flows southeast through Yunnan Province and into the Three Parallel Rivers region of the Hengduan Mountains, alongside the Yangtze and the Nujiang, then forms the Myanmar-Laos border, then runs past the 'Golden Triangle' Myanmar-Laos-Thailand tripoint to form the Laos-Thailand border, then crosses Cambodia to empty near Ho Chi Minh City into the South China Sea in a massive delta

Yenisei

The central of the three great Siberian-Arctic rivers, it rises in Mongolia and runs straight north to empty into the Kara Sea

Lena

The easternmost of the three great Siberian-Arctic rivers, it rises in the Baikal Mountains in the Central Siberian Plateau, then flows northeast to Yakutsk in the Sakha Republic, then northwest to empty into the Laptev Sea

Missouri

The longest river in North America, it rises in the Rockies in Montana then flows east into North Dakota, then east and south through South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri, where it joins with the Mississippi at St. Louis

Tagus

The longest river on the Iberian Peninsula; rising in southern Aragon near Castile-la Mancha, it flows west past Toledo, Talavera de la Reina, and Alcántara in Spain, then through Portugal to Lisbon where it empties into the Atlantic

São Francisco

The longest river solely in Brazil, and the fourth longest in South America, it was originally known as the Opara by indigenous people and is now known as the Velho Chico; it rises in the Canastra range in Minas Gerais, then flows north through Bahio and towards Pernambuco and Alagoas, after which it turns east to form the border between Alagos and Sergipe and empties into the Atlantic

Tigris

The northern and eastern of the two rivers of Mesopotamia, it rises in the Taurus Mountains in eastern Turkey and flows southeast to briefly form the Turkey-Iraq border, before flowing through Iraq and through Baghdad, and then joining with the Euphrates to form the Shatt al-Arab and empty into the Persian Gulf

Congo

The second longest river in Africa and the deepest in the world, it rises around the East African Rift in Zambia, flowing northwest into DR Congo to Kisangani, then back southwest to the lake-like Pool Malebo, where it sits between Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and then runs west along the Congo-DR Congo border through a series of cataracts known as the Livingstone Falls

Euphrates

The southern and western of the two rivers of Mesopotamia, it rises in eastern Turkey and flows south and east through Syria and Iraq, and joins with the Tigris in southeast Iraq to form the Shatt al-Arab and flow into the Persian Gulf

Ob

The westernmost of the three great Siberian-Arctic rivers, it forms at the conjunction of the Biya and Katun rivers, which flow from the Altay Mountains, and flows entirely through Siberia, then into the Kara Sea, where its gulf is the longest estuary in the world