Rivers from an Aerial View

The mighty Amazon River is the king of rivers.  At 6.4k km (4k mi.) in length, it's either #1 or #2 in length depending on definition.  Measured by discharge, it's not even close: the Amazon pumps an average of over 200k cubic meters (over 7 million cubic feet) of water into the Atlantic Ocean every second, roughly 5x its closest competitor.  Award winning contributor and drone pilot Fabio Knoll is a native of Brazil; his aerial video showcasing this spectacular natural resource is magnificent.

China's Yangtze River is the longest in Asia and third longest in the world.  Rising in the highlands of Tibet, it runs over 6.3k km (just under 4k mi.) to discharge into the East China Sea at the great city of Shanghai, the world's busiest port.  More than any individual city, this mighty river is the very heart of China.  In this video, contributor Mamitagadventures flies a DJI Mavic Pro drone over the great waterway, giving us bird's eye views of Shibaozhai Pagoda Temple, Chongquing, Yichang, and more.

While the Danube is not the longest in Europe it is generally considered its most important.  It rises in Germany's Black Forest, and runs through four European capital cities (Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Belgrade) before discharging into the Black Sea in Romania.  At 2.85k km (just under 1.8k mi.), it's second only to the Volga in length.  In this video, contributor Fabriziob treats us to a drone's eye view of the mighty river as it flows through  a region of Romania called Cazanele Dunarii.

The great Ganges (Ganga) River is amongst the 3-4 most important rivers in the world, although in terms of length it's a distant #35 at just over 2.5km (1.56 mi.).  It rises in the Himalaya's and runs through the North Indian Plain before breaking into distributories that empty into the Bay of Bengal. Passing through the most holy sites in Hinduism, it's considered sacred in the third largest religion.  In this video, you'll get an aerial look at the river nearer its source, compliments of contributor Miapvideos.

The Brahmaputra is one of the three great rivers of southern Asia, along with the Ganges and the Indus.  It rises in Tibet and flows through great stretches of northeastern India before entering Bangladesh, where it merges with one of the two main Ganges distributaries and thereafter forms the great Ganges Delta. At 3.8k km (2.4k mi.), it's the world's fifteenth longest river.  In this drone video by Cpborgohain, you'll get an epic drone's eye view of this magnificent waterway flowing through the Indian state of Assam. 

Contributor Imrankw created this aerial view of a spot on the Indus River in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of northern Pakistan.  The Indus is one of Asia's most important waterways, comparable in importance to Pakistan as the Ganges is to India.  Like the Ganges, it rises in the highlands of Tibet.  After running through a portion of northwestern India, the remainder of its almost 3.2k km (just under 2k mi.) course is through Pakistan,  where it discharges into the Arabian Sea.  

Amongst European rivers, the Volga is in a class by itself.  It's the longest river on the continent and also its largest by discharge volume.  Its 3.5k km (almost 2.2k mi.) course lies entirely within Russia, and most of the country's major cities are on the river or its tributaries.  In this drone video from Maksx, you'll get a great view of the river as it winds through Tolyatti, a mid-sized city which lies on one of the rivers great bends in its journey southwards towards the Caspian Sea.    

The Ukrainian capital Kiev is closely tied to the Dneiper River on which it sits.   Kiev sits roughly midway down the 2.2k km (1.36k mi.) river, Europe's fourth longest .  The Dneiper rises near Smolensk in western Russia and empties into the Black Sea to the south.  Along the way, it provides enough hydropower to generate about 10% of the Ukraine's electricity needs.  In this video, you'll get a nice bird's eye view of the mighty river in winter, compliments of contributor Anthony Esteban Gonsales.

Contributor Marckcure gives us this beautiful aerial look at the Middle Rhine River in Wesern Germany. The Rhine is one of the most important waterways in Europe, belying its modest length of about 1.2k km (about 735 mi.).  It rises in Germany's Black Forest as the High Rhine, meanders through parts of France and Switzerland as the Upper Rhine, runs north through much of western Germany as the Middle, then shifts to the northwest, discharging into the North Sea in the Netherlands.  

While the Amazon is South America's mightiest river, the Orinoco is a very close second.  This waterway runs over 2.1k km (about 1.3k mi) through Colombia and Venezuela, discharging an average of 37k cubic meters of water (over 1.3 million cu ft.) into the Atlantic every second.  By average discharge, it's the world's #3 river.  DJIVzla Drone gives us this epic aerial view of this mighty river in its primary country Venezuela, where the Orinoco plays a role analogous to the Amazon in Brazil. 

The Mekong River is one of the world's most important waterways, and with a length of about 4.4k km (about 2.7k mi), it's one of the dozen longest rivers.  It rises in Tibet and runs down the southeast side of the Indochina Peninsula, discharging into the South China Sea in Vietnam.  Its valleys and those of its tributaries feed hundreds of millions.  Benandstories created this awesome drone video of the river near its mounth, on the Mekong Delta near Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).  

In this amazing aerial video by contributor Droneland, you'll get a tour-by-drone of China's great Pearl River Delta.  The estuary of China's third largest river is home to over a hundred million people and for decades has been one of the world's most important economic regions.  The area explored is that beyond (inland) from Hong Kong, which sits at the northern mouth of the river's mouth.  This is Guangdong Province, whose largest cities (Guangdong and Shenzen) are amongst the largest in the country.  

Rickrayfilms created this beautiful aerial mini tour of the lower Mississippi River, generally considered the USA's greatest waterway.  It rises in northern Minnesota and runs about 3.7k km (2.3k mi.) through the country's mid-section, discharging into the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans.   It's the USA's largest river by discharge.  Length-wise, strictly speaking it's not as long as its Missouri River tributary, but using a convention of counting the Missouri it's the fourth longest in the world.  

Canada's St. Lawerence River is the country's most important waterway.  It provides the connection between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, and is also an immense source of hydroelectricity for Canada and the United States.  Only 500 km (just over 300 mi.) long, it's North America's largest river by discharge volume, and it created the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the largest river estuary in the world.  Contributor Dizfilms created this epic aerial tour of this mighty seaway.   

The Loire is the longest waterway in France, a country known in part for its rivers.  Running entirely within France's borders, it stretches a total of just over 1k km (about 630 miles), rising in Central France and discharging into the Atlantic Ocean at the Bay of Biscay.  It runs through the very heart of historical France; the Loire Valley includes hallowed towns such as Orleans, Tour, and Nantes, as well as many of France's most famous chateaus, such as as Chenonceau and Chambord.

Contributor Adrianotrapani created this magnificent video from western Siberia in Russia.  It was shot in a district of the Irkust Oblast, which lies just to the west of Lake Baikhal.  The video was shot along the Lena River, one of the three great rivers which drain Siberia into the Arctic Sea.  Drawing from the same watershed as Lake Baikhal (the world's largest freshwater lake measured by water volume), the waterway runs over 4.3k mi. (almost 2.7k mi.), forming a giant delta in the Laptev Sea in the Arctic Circle.  

The Zambezi river in southern Africa is almost 2.6k km (1.6k mi.) long, making it the fourth longest river on the continent.  It rises in Zambia and flows through three other countries before reaching Zambia again on its border with Zimbabwe where Victoria Falls, the river's most notable feature, is located.  In this video, contributor FredD flew his drone over the mighty river as it courses through the mighty waterfall, creating a masterpiece from the visuals of the water rushing downriver.  

Oregon Skywalker created this beautiful drone video shot on the Columbia River, unquestionably the most important in western North America.  It drains a huge section of the mountains of the USA's Pacific Northwest and Canada's British Columbia province, running 2k km (1.24k mi.) before discharging into the Pacific Ocean in Oregon.  The third largest purely USA river by discharge volume, it supplies the region with some of its top tourist spots as well as most of its electricity.  

Contrary to what many believe, the Mississippi is technically not the USA's longest river.  That title belongs to the Missouri River, which runs over 3.7k km (over 2.3k mi.) before joining the Mississippi in St. Louis, Missouri.  Over its course, towns and cities in ten different states owe their existence to the mighty waterway.  In this drone video by North Sky Aerial Imaging, you'll get a bird's eye look at the river as it flows through one of these cities, the South Dakota state capital of Pierre. 

The Ohio River is one of the USA's most important waterways.  It arises from the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, draining a large portion of the Appalachians and flowing almost 1.6k km (just under 1k mi.) to join the Mississippi in Cairo, Illinois.  While it's not as long as the Missouri River, it is the largest Mississippi tributary by discharge.  VizionAir used a drone to aerially film a new bridge over the great river near Louisville, Kentucky.    

The Colorado River is one of the principal waterways of western North America.  It rises in the Rocky Mountains, and runs over 2.3k km to discharge into the Gulf of California in northern Mexico.  Its course carved out some of the world's most well known canyons, including the Grand Canyon and the Black Canyon, the site of Hoover Dam.  In this video, you'll get a great aerial view of the river flowing through Moab in southern Utah, compliments of PK Productions.

Contributor and drone-explorer extraordinaire brings us this epic pull-out shot taken on the longest river in southern Africa.  The Orange River sources from the Drakensberg mountains and runs most of its 2.2 km (1,4k mi.) course westwards through South Africa, serving as its northern border with Namibia before discharging into the South Atlantic Ocean.  It is considered one of South Africa's greatest natural resources, supplying vast amounts of irrigation and hydropower to the region's most populous country.

Contributor Lens Flare used a DJI Mavic Pro drone to create this video of a town on the bend of the Dneister River, an important waterway in Eastern Europe.  The town is Roghi, in the eastern part of Moldova.  The river originates in Ukraine, and runs a nearly 1.4k km (846 mi.) generally southward course and discharging into the Black Sea.  In between, it runs through eastern Moldova, in certain areas serving as the border between the two countries, before crossing back into Ukraine.  

The Dvina River, also called the Daugava, is an important river in Eastern Europe.  It begins in Russia and runs a course of just over 1.0k km (620 mi.) through Belarus and Latvia before discharging into the Baltic Sea at the Gulf of Riga.   Historically, the river played an important defensive role given the lack of other natural defenses on the approaches to Moscow.  In this video, you'll get a bird's eye view of the river near the Belarus town of Vtibesk, compliments of contributor Onekit.  

The Hudson River is most closely associated with its end-point in the harbor of New York City.  Its upstream sections are far less well known.  Originating with runoff from the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, the great river runs a course of just over 500 km (315 mi.).  It's divided into an Upper Hudson and Lower Hudson, the divider being Federal Dam in Troy.  In this video by Utcinema, you'll get a bird's eye view of the valley of the Lower Hudson, at the height of the Fall season.  

Here's an amazing FPV video of a boat race on the Don River in southern Russia from contributor and FPV pilot D3nzlFPV.  It's a great example of the power of racing drones to film subjects which are simply moving too fast for gimbal-stabilized camera drones.  The filming scene is near the city of Rostov-on-Don, a port city near the mouth of the mighty Don River in Russia's Southern Federated District.  The Don is one of the most important waterways in southern Russia.  

The Ebro River is the most important waterway in Spain.  It drains much of the mountainous are in the northern part of the country, running 930 km (a bit under 600 mi.) to a discharge point into the Mediterranean in Catalonia, south of Terragona.  If you look at a map of the lower river, you'll see where the term "river delta" comes from; the area of land around the mouth makes an almost perfect triangle.  In this video, you'll get an aerial view of the Ebro Delta, compliments of contrbutor Karl Veca. 

The Ural River is the third longest river in Europe, after the Volga and the Danube.  It rises in the Ural Mountains in Russia, then passes through a portion of western Kazakhstan before discharging into the great Caspian Sea.  It's an immensely important natural resource to Kazakhstan, much of which is covered by desert.  In this drone video by contributor sekl, you'll get a bird's eye view of the great waterway as it meanders its way through Kazakhstan, the world's largest landlocked country.   

The Rhône is the most important river of Southern France.  While it isn't quite as long as the Loire River, it is easily the country's largest by discharge volume.  The river rises in the Alps and flows westwards and southwards, eventually splitting into two rivers (the Great Rhône and Little Rhône) and creating a large delta in the Comarge region before ending in the Mediterranean.  In this drone video by contributor Najibk, you'll get a look at the mighty waterway as it makes its way through the countryside. 

The mighty Amazon River is not exclusive to Brazil, and it actually originates in several countries of South America.  Contributor and drone pilot JTurner takes us on an aerial tour of the Amazon Basin in the northern part of Bolivia.  Using his DJI Mavic Pro drone he gives us a bird's eye view of the area around Madidi National Park.  Covering parts of both the Andes region and (what you will see here) the Amazon Basin, the park is one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet.