While the Nile and the Amazon rivers get a lot of credit for being the longest river and the world’s largest river by water volume, respectively, there are still plenty of titles to claim across the rest of planet Earth’s mighty waterways.
The oldest river in the world is the subject of some debate, but is largely agreed to be the Finke River, which is also known as the Larapinta by Indigenous communities in Australia. The river flows only a few times a year after heavy rainfall and extends around 600-750 kilometers (372-466 miles) to its outlet at Lake Eyre. Thought to be around 350 to 400 million years old, the Finke river has its source in the MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory of Australia. Indigenous legend tells the story that the river was formed when the Rainbow Serpent went north from Lake Eyre.
It is extremely difficult to work out the exact age of a river, especially over periods of extended geological time. Scientists and geologists can examine the surrounding ecological features, mountain ranges, and look at the riverbed sediment, as well as the “meanders” – features of the river course itself that have changed the landscape due to hundreds of million years of erosion. Even after considering all these features and more, it is not unusual to have wide-ranging estimates of age that span large time periods.
The oldest river in North America is thought to be the confusingly named New River, which runs approximately 547 kilometers (340 miles) from the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina into Virginia and West Virginia, where it eventually joins the Kanawha River. Estimates for the age of this river vary widely but most suggest it to be between 10 and 360 million years old. According to a study, this river was labeled the “second oldest river in the world” during a 1970s advertising campaign to prevent the river from being dammed.
Across the pond, the oldest river in Europe is thought to be the Meuse, which flows 950 kilometers (590 miles) through three countries: Belgium and The Netherlands, from its starting point in France. This river is estimated to be 320 to 340 million years old.
Our understanding of river formations is not an exact science, so more scientific evidence could come to light that changes the age of these rivers and sheds more light on their formation millions of years ago.
An earlier version of this article was published in May 2023.
