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River Systems World

The Nile, Mississippi, Ganges, Yangtze — how rivers shaped civilizations.

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Rivers are the arteries of human civilization — the oldest and most important cities in history were built on rivers (Babylon on the Euphrates, Memphis on the Nile, Rome on the Tiber, London on the Thames, New York on the Hudson). Rivers provided water, food (fish), transport, power (waterwheels, hydroelectric), agricultural land (floodplain fertility), and natural boundaries. The world's longest rivers: Nile (6,650 km, though Amazon may be longer depending on measurement); Amazon (6,400 km, largest by discharge); Yangtze (6,300 km, longest in Asia); Mississippi-Missouri (6,275 km); Yenisei (5,539 km). The Ganges (2,525 km) is the world's most sacred river — Hinduism's holiest. The Mississippi-Missouri system drains 41% of the continental US. The Colorado River is so over-allocated for agriculture and cities that it no longer reaches the sea. The Amazon discharges 20% of all riverine freshwater entering the oceans.

# Top 10 river facts

  1. 1Nile vs Amazon (longest debate)
  2. 2Amazon largest discharge
  3. 3Ganges holiest
  4. 4Mississippi drains 41% of continental US
  5. 5Colorado no longer reaches sea
  6. 6Rhine Rhine's revival (cleaning up industrial pollution)
  7. 7Yellow River (floods killed millions)
  8. 8flooding as fertility and danger
  9. 9river delta formation
  10. 10estuaries as most productive ecosystems

Fascinating Facts

  • ◆The Colorado River — which carved the Grand Canyon — no longer reaches the ocean; it has been so extensively diverted for irrigation and urban use that it dries up 100 km from its mouth
  • ◆The Ganges River is simultaneously one of the world's most polluted rivers and the most sacred — 400 million people live along its banks, and millions bathe in it daily as a religious act despite severe contamination
  • ◆The Amazon River has no bridges for most of its length — the river and its floodplain are too wide and the banks too unstable for bridge construction across most of the 6,400 km
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