Rivers

Ukraine has over a hundred rivers longer than 100 km, and around 4,000 over 10 km in length. Most of the rivers flow into the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov, and 96% of the country is within the drainage basins of these two seas. The remaining rivers flow into the Baltic Sea via Poland.

The longest river in Ukraine is the Dnipro (sometimes referred to as the Dnieper), which originates in Russia, flows through Belarus and then crosses Ukraine from its northern border to the Black Sea. With a total length of 2,285 km, of which 1,095 km is in Ukraine, the Dnipro is the fourth longest river in Europe (after the Volga, Danube and Ural).

A striking man-made feature of the Dnipro is a cascade of large reservoirs created between 1932 and 1978 by the construction of six hydroelectric power stations along the Ukrainian part of the river. The total length of the reservoirs is 855 km and they cover an area of nearly 7,000 sq. km. The once-famous Dnipro Rapids between Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia, which prevented continuous navigation on the river, disappeared with the construction of the first of the power stations and the creation of the associated reservoir.

The final stretch of the river Danube, which flows from Germany to the Black Sea, forms the southern border between Ukraine and Romania. Other rivers with a channel length over 500 km within Ukraine are the Southern Buh, Psel, Dnister, Siverskyi Donets, Horyn, Desna and Inhulets.