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The 9 Longest Rivers in the World
From the Nile to the Congo (Howstuffworks): Rivers are great collectors. As freshwater molecules flow along the landscape, gravity forces them to seek the lowest possible ground, where they gather with other water molecules.
The collected water soon becomes a trickle. Trickles join together to form small creeks, which then join to form larger streams and, ultimately, rivers.
A watershed is an area of land that drains all the water in a particular area to a single point: the place where a river meets the ocean. The size of a watershed can be big or small, depending on the landscape, and some watersheds can be massive.
Massive watersheds often make for humongous rivers. Where a few creeks and streams running together end and a river begins is difficult to determine, but in order to rank rivers by their length, they’ve got to start somewhere and a bit of arbitrary fudging has to happen in order to measure them.
However, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, “the length [of a river] may be considered to be the distance from the mouth to the most distant headwater source (irrespective of stream name) or from the mouth to the headwaters of the stream commonly identified as the source stream.”
So, here they are, from the Nile to the Congo — the nine longest rivers in the world:
1. The Nile River 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’re comparable in length, but in 2009, a study in the International Journal of Digital Earth determined the Nile to be a bit longer at 4,132 miles (6,650 kilometers).
The Nile also is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world’s longest river.
The Nile has two major tributaries — the White Nile and the Blue Nile, which meet up in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.
The Nile drains an area of 1,293,056 square miles (3,349,000 square kilometers) of Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea and Democratic Republic of the Congo, before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea.
2. The Amazon River The Amazon River flows through Peru, Colombia and Brazil. Although the Nile is officially the longest river in the world, many disagree with that assessment and insist the Amazon is longer.
Certainly, it’s the world’s largest river based on the enormous volume of water it deposits into the Atlantic Ocean every day; it has a greater output of fresh water than the next seven largest rivers combined.
It also has the largest drainage area — 2,400,000 square miles (6,300,000 square kilometers) — which occupies almost 40 percent of the entire continent of South America.
Be that as it may, most researchers agree that it is only 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) long compared with the Nile’s 4,132 miles (6,650 kilometers).
3. The Yangtze RiverMost of the world’s longest rivers are in Asia, and the Yangtze is the longest of them all.
It’s actually pretty comparable in length to the Nile and Amazon rivers, measuring 3,900 miles (6,300 kilometers) long.
It is also the longest river that flows entirely within the borders of a single country, and it drains a fifth of the land area of China, a country which makes up 6.3 percent of the world’s landmass.
The mighty Yangtze River has over 700 tributary rivers and streams and its 698,265-square-mile (1,808,500-square-kilometer) watershed is home to a third of the population of China.
4. The Missouri River The longest river in North America and the fourth-longest river in the world starts as the Missouri River, which drains 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square kilometers) of the Rocky Mountains of the U.S., as well as two Canadian Provinces.
The 2,341-mile-long (3,767-kilometer-long) Missouri meets the Mississippi River — America’s second-longest, which is only slightly shorter than the Missouri — near St. Louis, Missouri, and together their waters flow to the Gulf of Mexico.
The river system drains 32 U.S. states.
5. The Yenisey River The Yenisey River in Siberia, at 2,167 miles (3,487 kilometers) long, empties into the Arctic Ocean, and is fed by Lake Baikal, the deepest, oldest lake in the world — as well as one of the clearest.
The 616-mile (992-kilometer) Selenga River begins in northern Mongolia, empties into Lake Baikal, and then the lake spits out the Angara River, which becomes the Yenisey.
Put together, the Yenisey-Angara-Selenga river system, the fifth longest river in the world, is 3,442 miles (5,539 kilometers) long.
6. The Yellow River China’s Yellow River, also called the Huang He, is 3,395 miles (5,464 kilometers) long. Its headwaters are in the Bayan Har Mountains of central China and it flows east across nine provinces and into the Bohai Sea.
Its total drainage area is 307,000 square miles (795,000 square kilometers), and archaeological evidence points to the Yellow River watershed being the cradle of ancient Chinese civilization.
7. The Ob-Irtysh River The seventh-longest river in the world is the Ob-Irtysh river system. The Ob River originates in western Siberia in the Altai Mountains and is met by the Irtysh River that begins in Mongolia and flows through China and Kazakhstan before entering Russia.
Together the two rivers drain 1,154,445 square miles (2,990,000 square kilometers) of land and are 3,360 miles (5,410 kilometers) long.
8. The Rio de la Plata-Paraná-Rio Grande Rivers The Rio Grande, which feeds the Paraná River, which empties into the Rio de La Plata, which ultimately arrives at the Atlantic Ocean at the border or Uruguay and Argentina, is the eighth-longest river in the world and the second-longest river system in South America.
The river system is 3,032 miles (4,880 kilometers) long and drains an area of 997,175 square miles (2,582,672 square kilometers) of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay.
9. The Congo River The Congo River of west-central Africa is the ninth longest in the world and the second longest in Africa.
On a map, it looks a bit like a many-limbed tree, but the headwater stream farthest from its mouth into the Atlantic Ocean is the Chambeshi River high in the mountains of Zambia, giving it a length of 2,920 miles (4,700 kilometers).
The Congo river system drains 1,550,000 square miles (4,014,500 square kilometers) and is the second-largest discharge of any river in the world.
News
NASS Lauds Wike’s Exceptional Performances as FCT Minister
Wike appealed to the lawmakers to approve the N1.78 trillion FCT Statutory Budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year.
Ningi, who equates the current status of the FCT with Johannesburg and Cairo, however, urges the FCT minister to do more to improve the security in the territory.
The leadership and members of the National Assembly have lauded the exceptional performance of Mr Nyesom Wike as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The lawmakers gave the commendation when Wike appeared before them to defend the N1.78 trillion FCT Statutory Budget proposal for the 202 fiscal year.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on FCT, Sen. Ibrahim Bomai, particularly commended Wike for the wonderful performance in just a short time as FCT minister, along with the FCT Minister of State, Dr Mariya Mahmoud.
Bomai also said he was impressed with the FCT’s 2025 revenue and fiscal framework.
“This is the first time FCT is proposing to generate about N1.7 trillion. What FCT has presented is one of the best budgets so far.
Also, the N608 billion projected Internally Generated Revenue for 2025 also shows a significant improvement,” he said.
Also, Sen. Abdul Ningi (Bauchi Central, PDP), commended the FCT minister for the comprehensive turnaround of Abuja as Nigeria’s capital city.
Ningi, who equates the current status of the FCT with Johannesburg and Cairo, however, urged the minister to do more to improve the security in the territory.
Similarly, Sen. Mohammed Ndume (Borno South APC) said: “Everybody that knows where Abuja was two years ago and what it is now, knows that you have done well.
“Even yesterday, my friend told me that Wike is doing fine, and I said no, it is the Senate that is doing fine because without approving his budget, he cannot do anything”.
Ndume pledged the continued support of the Senate to enable him to succeed.
On his part, Sen. Osita Ozunaso (Imo West, APC) said that the FCT budget performance was commendable, particularly the reduction in personnel cost to allocate more funds to capital projects.
“Whenever we are sitting on budgets, people come here and they increase the personnel cost, but you have reduced the personnel cost in the 2025 proposed budget by N21 billion from the amount allocated in 2024.
“Second, you have more capital expenditure than recurrent expenditure. This is commendable,” Ozunaso said.
Senator Adams Oshiomhole (Edo North, APC) described Wike as one of the best ministers under the APC administration.
Oshiomhole noted that too much money was being spent on overhead with very little available for infrastructure, “what Wike has done is worth noting and commendation”.
He also commended the FCT minister for implementing specific programmes to bring life to rural communities in FCT.
This, he said, was the most potent statement to decongest the city, by taking development to the people where they live.
Also, Sen. Ireti Kingibe (FCT, LP), who had been very critical of Wike’s leadership style, commended the minister for the visible performance, which she said was undisputable.
Earlier, at the House of Representatives, the Chairman of the Committee on FCT, Mr Muktar Betara, commended Wike for the ongoing transformation of the nation’s capital.
Other lawmakers took turns to applaud the exemplary performance and dedication of the FCT minister to deliver the dividend of democracy to FCT residents in line with the renewed hope agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
Earlier, Wike appealed to the lawmakers to approve the N1.78 trillion FCT Statutory Budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year.
He explained that out of the N1.78 trillion, N1.28 trillion was earmarked for capital projects, representing 72.3 percent, while N494.1 billion was set aside for recurrent expenditure, representing 27.7 per cent.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has announced a fresh round of mop-up examinations to accommodate the over 5.6 per cent of candidates who missed the just-concluded 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, made the disclosure on Wednesday during a stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja, stating that the initiative will cover all affected candidates, regardless of the reason for their absence.
He said, “This time, we are creating a new mop-up. Even those who missed the earlier exam due to absence will get another opportunity.
“It’s not extraordinary. In any serious system, when students miss an exam, they’re allowed to make up—provided there’s no abuse.”
Oloyede emphasised that the UTME is a placement test, not a measure of intelligence or academic potential.
“Its purpose is to rank candidates for limited admission slots, not to test how smart someone is,” he clarified.
Addressing growing criticism and conspiracy theories about the examination process, Oloyede firmly rejected claims of ethnic bias or administrative incompetence.
He stated, “I take responsibility, not because I failed, but because that’s leadership.
“I didn’t even realise people viewed issues around me through ethnic lenses. We must rise above such profiling.
”Oloyede als praised both candidates and staff for their resilience amid logistical difficulties.
“We had limited space. We knew if we wasted more time grieving the challenges, students would lose their opportunity,” he said.
The special mop-up exam will be scheduled soon, and JAMB says it remains committed to transparency and fairness in admissions.
….Orders Investigation into Oyo Tragic Traffic Incident
The Inspector General of Police, IGP, Kayode Egbetokun has condemned the recent unprovoked attacks on police operatives in the early hours of Monday, 20th May 2025, at Okhuimwun Community in Ovia North-East Local Government Area of Edo State.
In a press statement made available to Ohibaba.com, and signed by ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, Force public relations officer, at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, on the 21st May, 2025, the IGP also condemned the alleged killing of an SSCE student by police personnel in Ibadan.
The statement reads: “The Nigeria Police Force strongly condemns the unprovoked attack on police operatives in the early hours of Monday, 20th May 2025, at Okhuimwun Community in Ovia North-East Local Government Area of Edo State.
The operatives, who are members of the Force Intelligence Department – Intelligence Response Team (FID-IRT), were in transit from Lagos through Edo State when they encountered a mob that had blocked the road immediately after the University of Benin (UNIBEN) axis.
The mob, in an unlawful display of aggression, descended on the officers with stones, sticks, and other dangerous objects, inflicting serious injuries on two police personnel.
It is noteworthy that despite the provocation and threat to life, the officers exercised commendable restraint by not resorting to the use of force.
The injured officers are currently receiving medical attention and are in stable condition.
The Nigeria Police Force warns against acts of lawlessness and unprovoked aggression against its personnel who are committed to maintaining law and order and hereby assure the public that investigations have commenced, and appropriate legal actions will be taken against those found culpable.
In a separate development, the Inspector-General of Police has ordered a comprehensive investigation into a tragic incident in Oyo State involving personnel of the Oyo State Police Command and the Oyo State Traffic Management Authority (OYTMA), which led to the unfortunate demise of a 14-year-old boy, Kehinde Alade.
The Inspector-General of Police condemned the incident and assured that the officer involved in the shooting has been taken into custody while a full-scale investigation is underway.
He equally reiterated that the process will be transparent, and its findings will be made public to ensure justice is duly served as he expressed heartfelt condolences to the family of the deceased young man.
The Nigeria Police Force reiterates its commitment to the protection of lives and property and urges citizens to remain law-abiding and to channel grievances through lawful and peaceful means.
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