List of the shortest rivers in the world

09:44 PM May 05, 2023 IST | Ground report

Geography is an area that has allowed us to discover the most extreme points on the planet. Well, we all know the names of the highest mountain -Everest-, the deepest sea depth -the Mariana Trench- or the longest river, a title traditionally held by the Nile.

In 1952, Arthur Newell Strahler, a professor of geosciences at Columbia University, proposed a system for classifying streams and rivers based on their tributaries. Strahler’s stream order classification system classifies streams and rivers into 12 different orders based on their tributaries. Tributaries are streams or rivers that feed into a larger stream or river, but do not flow directly into the ocean.

First and second order flows feed into larger flows and have no other flows to feed them. Headwater streams, which are streams that flow into the upper reaches of a basin, are classified from first to third order and make up more than 80% of the world’s waterways.

Streams ranked fourth through sixth are considered medium-sized and are fed by other streams, while streams ranked above sixth are fed by multiple tributaries and are considered rivers.

According to Strahler’s current order classification system, the Mississippi River is classified as an 8th-order current and the Amazon River, which carries more water than any other waterway in the world, is classified as a 12th-order current. The Amazon River stretches for 4,345 miles (6,993 kilometers), dwarfing Montana’s Roe River, which seems like a small trickle by comparison.

However, if we were asked which is the shortest river on Earth, very few people would know what to answer.

The following list of rivers is the shortest by total length, located in a geographical area.

Rank	Name of River	Length	Location
1	Reprua River	18m	Gagra District, Abkhazia
2	Tamborasi River	61m	Kolaka, Sulawesi, Indonesia
3	Kovasselva River	22m	Island Hitra, Norway
4	Ombla River	30 m	Ombla Komolac, Croatia
5	Jezernica River	55m	Jezernica
6	Roe River	61m	Great Falls, USA

The Reprua River

Located in the Absajia region (Republic of Georgia), this water flow is born in the Voronya cave and flows into the Dead Sea, after travelling a distance of only 18 meters.

Tamborasi River

In southeastern Sulawesi, Indonesia, the Tamborasi River is 20 meters long and 15 meters wide and empties into the Sea of Flowers at Bone Bay.

Kovasselva River

The Kovasselva River is only 22 meters long, the Norwegian Kovasselva River flows from Lake Kovassvatnet to the sea. It is located on Hitra, the seventh largest island in Norway.

Ombla River

The Ombla is a small river in Croatia that empties into Rijeka Dubrovaka Bay of the Adriatic Sea. Its length is about 30 meters (98 feet) long.

Jezernica River

One of the 59 rivers in Slovenia is called Jezernica. In addition, it empties into the Adriatic Sea as a branch of the larger Idrijca. Located on the Wild Lake, a karst lake and spring with an underground water source, Jezernica is barely 55 meters long.

The Roe River

In 1989, the 61 meters of this Montana torrent, which rises in Great Springs and flows into the Missouri River, ousted the D River as the shortest in the world in the Guinness Book, a category that disappeared as of the 2006 edition.