Ukraine has around 23,000 rivers, with most of the rivers draining into the Black Sea and Azov Sea and belonging to the larger Mediterranean basin. Those rivers mostly flow in a southerly direction, except for the Pripyat tributaries in Volhynia and Dniester tributaries in Prykarpattia. A few western Ukraine rivers drain to the north west through Poland to the Baltic Sea, as part of the Western Bug drainage basin. The most notable rivers of Ukraine include the Dnieper, Dniester, Southern Buh, and Siverskyi Donets. The longest river is the Dnieper, the longest tributary is the Dnieper's tributary Desna. Two of the Danube's tributaries in Ukraine, the Prut and the Tysa, are longer than the main river within Ukraine.
A NASA satellite image of the Dnieper and its tributaries.
The territory of Ukraine can be divided into nine hydrographic zones according to major river basins, including the basins of the Wisła (Western Bug and San), Danube, Dniester, Southern Bug, Dnieper, Don, the rivers of the Black Sea littoral, the Sea of Azov littoral, and separately the rivers of Crimea. The biggest river basin by area is the Dnieper which is subdivided into the Pripyat basin, Desna basin, basin of Middle Dnieper, basin of Lower Dnieper. Beside Dnieper, basin of the Danube zoning is also subdivided into basin of Tysa, basin of Prut and Siret, and basin of the Lower Danube.
List of major rivers in Ukraine
Listed are rivers over 150 km (93 mi) long. Length is in kilometers.
The most water in Ukraine is carried by Dnieper. Its annual drainage volume is 52.42 km3 (12.58 cu mi). The only other river that has higher drainage volume is the Danube which running through Central Europe within Ukraine stretches only for 174 km (108 mi). The average annual drainage of the Danube is around 123 km3 (30 cu mi).
The deepest river of Ukraine is Dniester. In its mid stream between Pyzhniv village and Mohyliv-Podilsky through the Dniester canyon (Podillia Upland) the river narrows to 1.5 km (0.93 mi) in width and deepens up to 10 m (33 ft).
The biggest river delta in Ukraine belongs to Dnieper and has area of 350 km2 (140 sq mi), while the Danube Delta within Ukraine is only 120 km2 (46 sq mi).
