45,527 (2024)
20,316 (2024)
total: 1,148,186 km (2013)
2,293,412 km (2017)
top ten longest rivers: Nile (Africa) 6,693 km; Amazon (South America) 6,436 km; Mississippi-Missouri (North America) 6,238 km; Yenisey-Angara (Asia) 5,981 km; Ob-Irtysh (Asia) 5,569 km; Yangtze (Asia) 5,525 km; Yellow (Asia) 4,671 km; Amur (Asia) 4,352 km; Lena (Asia) 4,345 km; Congo (Africa) 4,344 km
note 1: rivers are not necessarily navigable along the entire length; if measured by volume, the Amazon is the largest river in the World, responsible for about 20% of the Earth's freshwater entering the ocean
note 2: there are 20 countries without rivers: 3 in Africa (Comoros, Djibouti, Libya); 1 in the Americas (Bahamas); 8 in Asia (Bahrain, Kuwait, Maldives, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen); 3 in Europe (Malta, Monaco, Holy See), 5 in Oceania (Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Tonga, Tuvalu); these countries also do not have natural lakes
top ten largest natural lakes (by surface area): Caspian Sea (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan) 372,960 sq km; Lake Superior (Canada, United States) 82,414 sq km; Lake Victoria (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) 69,490 sq km; Lake Huron (Canada, United States) 59,596 sq km; Lake Michigan (United States) 57,441 sq km; Lake Tanganyika (Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Zambia) 32,890 sq km; Great Bear Lake (Canada) 31,800 sq km; Lake Baikal (Russia) 31,494 sq km; Lake Nyasa (Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania) 30,044 sq km; Great Slave Lake (Canada) 28,400 sq km
note 1: the areas of the lakes are subject to seasonal variation; only the Caspian Sea is saline, the rest are fresh water
note 2: Lakes Huron and Michigan are technically a single lake because the flow of water between the Straits of Mackinac that connects the two lakes keeps their water levels at near-equilibrium; combined, Lake Huron-Michigan is the largest freshwater lake by surface area in the World
note 3: the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m), and also the largest freshwater lake by volume (23,600 cu km), is Lake Baikal in Russia
total: 103,577 (2023)
by type: bulk carrier 13,141, container ship 5,815, general cargo 19,918, oil tanker 11,604, other 53,099
top twenty container ports as measured by Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) throughput: Shanghai (China) - 47,030,300; Singapore (Singapore) - 37,470,000; Ningbo (China) - 31,070,000; Shenzhen (China) - 28,767,600; Guangzhou (China) - 24,180,000; Qingdao (China) - 23,710,000; Busan (South Korea) - 22,706,130; Tianjin (China) - 20,269,400; Hong Kong (China) - 17,798,000; Rotterdam (Netherlands) - 15,300,000; Dubai (UAE) - 13,742,000; Port Kelang (Malaysia) - 13,724,460; Xiamen (China) - 12,045,700; Antwerp (Belgium) - 12,020,000; Tanjung Pelepas (Malaysia) - 11,200,000; Los Angeles (US) - 10,677,610; Kaohsiung (Taiwan) - 9,864,448; Long Beach (US) - 9,384,368; New York/New Jersey (US) - 8,985,929; Hamburg (Germany) - 8,715,000 (2021)
View of the port of Los Angeles, California: 
View of the port of Long Beach, California: 
NOTE: The information regarding World on this page is re-published from the 2024 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of World 2024 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about World 2024 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.
This page was last modified 04 May 24, Copyright © 2024 ITA all rights reserved.
