This article lists rivers that are located in Germany, either entirely or partially, or that form the country's international borders. The rivers of Germany flow into either the Baltic Sea (Ostsee), the Black Sea or the North Sea (Nordsee).
The main rivers of Germany include:
An alphabetical list of all German rivers that have an article in Wikipedia appears at the end of the article.
Rivers that flow into the sea are sorted geographically, along the coast. Rivers that flow into other rivers are sorted by the proximity of their points of confluence to the sea (the lower in the list, the more upstream).
Some rivers (the Meuse, for example) do not flow through Germany themselves, but they are mentioned for having German tributaries. They appear in italics.
For clarity, only rivers that are longer than 50 kilometres (31 mi) (or have longer tributaries) are included below (see alphabetical list for a more comprehensive list).
The rivers in this section are sorted north-west (Danish border) to east (Polish border) and drain into the Baltic Sea:
These rivers drain into the Black Sea:
The rivers in this section are sorted south-west (Netherlands) to east (Danish border) and drain into the North Sea:
The Rhine is one of the major European rivers. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms the Swiss-Liechtenstein border and partly the Swiss-Austrian and Swiss-German borders. After that the Rhine defines much of the Franco-German border, after which it flows in a mostly northerly direction through the German Rhineland. Finally in Germany, the Rhine turns into a predominantly westerly direction and flows into the Netherlands where it eventually empties into the North Sea. It drains an area of 9,973 km2.
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia, then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 kilometres northwest of Hamburg. Its total length is 1,094 km (680 mi).
The Upper Rhine is the section of the Rhine between the Middle Bridge in Basel, Switzerland, and the Rhine knee in Bingen, Germany. It is surrounded by the Upper Rhine Plain. Most of its upper section marks the France–Germany border.
The Saale, also known as the Saxon Saale and Thuringian Saale, is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saale, a right-bank tributary of the Main, or the Saale in Lower Saxony, a tributary of the Leine.
The Aachtopf is Germany's biggest karst spring, south of the western end of the Swabian Jura near the town of Aach. It produces an average of 8,500 litres per second. Most of the water stems from the River Danube where it disappears underground at the Danube Sinkhole, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) north near Immendingen and about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) north near Fridingen. The cave system has been explored since the 1960s, but as of 2020 only a small part has been discovered due to a large blockage after a few hundred metres.
The Murg is an 80.2-kilometre-long river and tributary of the Rhine in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It flows through the Northern Black Forest into the Upper Rhine Plain, crossing the counties of Freudenstadt and Rastatt.
The main European watershed is the drainage divide ("watershed") which separates the basins of the rivers that empty into the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea from those that feed the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea. It stretches from the tip of the Iberian Peninsula at Gibraltar in the southwest to the endorheic basin of the Caspian Sea in Russia in the northeast.
The Kinzig is a river in southwestern Germany, a right tributary of the Rhine.
Germany is a country in Central and Western Europe that stretches from the Alps, across the North European Plain to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, and is seventh-largest country by area in the continent. The area of Germany ranked 63rd and covers 357,600 km2 (138,070 sq mi), consisting of 349,250 km2 (134,846 sq mi) of land and 8,350 km2 (3,224 sq mi) of waters, smaller than Japan but larger than Republic of the Congo.
Glatt is a river of Baden-Württemberg, Germany.