How long is the Niger River? Length and course across Africa
The Niger River is about 4,200 km (2,600 miles) long. It is the third longest river in Africa after the Nile and the Congo. It begins near the Atlantic, yet flows inland and reaches the Gulf of Guinea only after a great arc.
Lay the Niger 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.
Niger: about 4,200 km (2,600 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 Niger flows
The Niger begins in the Guinea Highlands in Guinea, not far from the Atlantic Ocean, but flows northeast away from it. In Mali it forms a wide inland delta, then turns southeast, crosses the country of Niger and Nigeria and enters the Gulf of Guinea through one of the largest deltas in Africa. Both countries take their names from the river.
The Niger basin covers about 2.24 million km². At its mouth the river carries about 6,100 m³/s of water on average. It crosses the dry Sahel, so it carries far less water than its length suggests: the Congo carries almost seven times more.
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 4,300 km
On a Mercator map the Niger looks about 4,300 km long (×1.03 its true length). Its course lies close to the equator, so the map barely stretches it.
Open the Mercator mapHow long is it really?
About 4,200 km is the length given in the Encyclopædia Britannica table. Some lists give about 4,100 to 4,200 km, because the result depends on the choice of delta branch and the accuracy of the map.
The line on this page's maps is about 3,898 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.
Niger: questions and answers
The Niger River is about 4,200 km (2,600 miles) long according to Encyclopædia Britannica. It is the third longest river in Africa after the Nile and the Congo.
The Niger begins in the Guinea Highlands in Guinea, near the border with Sierra Leone and not far from the Atlantic Ocean.
The Niger flows into the Gulf of Guinea, part of the Atlantic Ocean, through a wide delta in Nigeria.
Guinea, Mali, the country of Niger and Nigeria, and for a short stretch along the border with Benin.
Yes. Both countries take their names from the Niger River, which flows through both.