Waterways Length by Country 2024

The country with the longest amount of waterways is Russia, which has 102 thousand kilometers of waterways. This is particularly impressive considering that this number is more than double that of Brazil, the country with the second-longest length of waterways. The next three spots are taken by Vietnam with over 47 thousand kilometers of waterways, Kazakhstan with almost 44 thousand kilometers, and the United States with just over 41 thousand kilometers.

Russia's number one spot is unsurprising given that it is the largest country in the world. In fact, it is so large that it is over 7 million square kilometers larger than any other country in the world and makes up 11.5% of the Earth's area. What is surprising is that Canada, the second-largest country in the world with 10 million square kilometers, doesn't even break the top ten for longest waterways. Canada is much closer to the bottom of the list with only 636 kilometers of waterways.

Brazil, Kazakhstan, and the United States are three of the largest countries in the world with millions of square kilometers each. However, Vietnam is significantly smaller with 331.2 thousand square kilometers. Supposing that the two countries closest in size to Vietnam, Malaysia and Finland, only have 7.2 thousand and 8 thousand kilometers of waterways respectively, it is easy to understand that waterways are an important feature of the Vietnamese landscape.

China holds the sixth position with over 27 thousand kilometers of waterways. While this is a considerable length, it is less than half the length of China's planned high-speed rail system, which is the longest in the world. Even if the plan is never finished, China already has 13 thousand more kilometers of finished high-speed rail lines than waterways. The rest of the top ten is rounded out by Colombia, Indonesia, DR Congo, and India.

The two countries with the fewest kilometers of waterways both have less than 10 kilometers each. Kiribati is an island nation with 5 kilometers of waterways while Greece consists of both islands and coastal mainland. Five other countries have less than 100 kilometers of waterways each: Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Albania, Togo, and Rwanda.