How long is the Volga? Length of the longest river in Europe
The Volga is about 3,530 km (2,193 miles) long. It is the longest river in Europe, and its whole course lies in Russia.
Lay the Volga 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.
Volga: about 3,530 km (2,193 miles), about 90% of 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 Volga flows
The Volga rises in the Valdai Hills, northwest of Moscow, and flows in a great arc across European Russia. It enters the Caspian Sea through a delta; the Caspian has no outlet to the ocean.
The Volga basin covers about 1.38 million km². At its mouth the river carries about 8,000 m³/s of water on average, the most of any river in Europe.
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 6,000 km
On a Mercator map the Volga looks about 6,000 km long (×1.71 its true length). Its course lies far from the equator, so the map stretches it by about 71%. On a globe and in the tables the difference disappears.
Open the Mercator mapHow long is it really?
Encyclopedias usually give about 3,530 km, but some publications give values closer to 3,700 km. The differences come from the chosen source and from how the channel is measured in the delta.
The line on this page's maps is about 3,273 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.
Volga: questions and answers
The Volga is about 3,530 km (2,193 miles) long according to Encyclopædia Britannica.
The Volga (about 3,530 km). Second is the Danube (about 2,850 km), the longest river in the European Union.
The Volga rises in the Valdai Hills, northwest of Moscow.
The Volga enters the Caspian Sea through a delta. The Caspian is the largest lake in the world and has no outlet to the ocean.