How long is the Nile? Length of the longest river on Earth
The Nile is about 6,650 km (4,132 miles) long. By most measures it is the longest river in the world, although some measurements put the Amazon ahead.
Lay the Nile 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.
Nile: about 6,650 km (4,132 miles), about 1.7 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 Nile flows
The Nile flows north from equatorial Africa, through Sudan and Egypt, to the Mediterranean Sea. Its most distant source is the Kagera, which feeds Lake Victoria. The White Nile leaves the lake, and at Khartoum it is joined by the Blue Nile, which flows from Lake Tana in Ethiopia.
The Nile basin covers about 3.35 million km² across 11 countries. For all its length, the Nile is not among the rivers that carry the most water. About 2,800 m³/s used to reach the Aswan Dam, and only about 5% of that still reaches the Mediterranean today.
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 Nile looks about 7,000 km long (×1.05 its true length). Its course lies close to the equator, so the map barely stretches it.
Open the Mercator mapHow long is it really?
Encyclopedias usually give about 6,650 km. The length still depends on which tributary counts as the source and where the river ends in its delta. That is why reliable sources give different numbers and why the Nile and the Amazon still compete for first place.
The line on this page's maps is about 6,190 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.
Nile: questions and answers
The Nile is about 6,650 km (4,132 miles) long, from the headwaters of the Kagera to the Mediterranean Sea. Encyclopædia Britannica and the US Geological Survey give this figure.
The most distant source of the Nile is the Kagera River, whose upper course lies in Burundi and Rwanda. The Kagera flows into Lake Victoria, where the White Nile begins. The other main branch, the Blue Nile, flows out of Lake Tana in Ethiopia and joins the White Nile at Khartoum.
The Nile flows into the Mediterranean Sea. In northern Egypt it splits into a wide delta.
The Nile basin covers 11 countries: Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. The main stem, with the Kagera, runs through or along the borders of Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.
Most sources rank the Nile first (about 6,650 km) and the Amazon second (about 6,400 km). A Brazilian measurement in 2007 gave the Amazon about 6,992 km, but it used a different source and a different mouth. The Amazon clearly carries far more water.