How long is the Amur River? The border river of Russia and China
With the Argun, the Amur is about 4,444 km (2,761 miles) long. It is the tenth longest river in the world, and for a long stretch it forms the border of Russia and China.
Lay the Amur over your country
The river and a country at one scale. Pick a country, drag the river or switch the globe to the Mercator map.
Amur: about 4,444 km (2,761 miles), about 1.1 times the straight-line distance from New York to Los Angeles (about 3,940 km).
Drag the river with your finger or mouse. It moves over the globe without changing shape or length, and its north stays up. The globe keeps the true proportions; on the Mercator map you can see how a river moved north grows.
Where the Amur flows
The Amur forms where the Shilka and the Argun meet. The most distant sources of the system lie in the Greater Khingan range in China, where the Hailar, the upper course of the Argun, begins. The Argun and then the Amur itself form the border of Russia and China for a long stretch, before the Amur crosses the Russian Far East to the Strait of Tartary.
The Amur basin covers about 1.86 million km² and also reaches into Mongolia. The river carries about 11,000 m³/s of water on average.
Rivers of similar length, straightened
Rivers drawn at one scale. Straighten them to compare their lengths and see how they look on a Mercator map.
On a Mercator map: about 7,000 km
On a Mercator map the Amur looks about 7,000 km long (×1.58 its true length). Its course lies far from the equator, so the map stretches it by about 58%. On a globe and in the tables the difference disappears.
Open the Mercator mapHow long is it really?
About 4,444 km is the length counted together with the Argun. The Amur itself, from the meeting of the Shilka and the Argun, is about 2,824 km long.
The line on this page's maps is about 3,690 km long, shorter than the sources say, because a 1:10 million map smooths the bends and the mouth. That is why lengths here come from the sources, not from the drawing.
Amur: questions and answers
The Amur with the Argun is about 4,444 km (2,761 miles) long according to Encyclopædia Britannica. The Amur itself, from the meeting of the Shilka and the Argun, is about 2,824 km.
The Amur forms where the Shilka and the Argun meet. The most distant sources of the system lie in the Greater Khingan range in China, on the upper Argun.
The Amur flows into the Strait of Tartary, which links the Sea of Okhotsk with the Sea of Japan.
China and Russia. For a long stretch the river forms the border between the two. Its basin also reaches into Mongolia.