Rivers of Europe Trivia Quiz

The longest river cutting through Portugal and Spain, the Tagus reaches a maximum length of just over a thousand kilometres. The Tagus starts east of Madrid and travels beside it, cutting through Toledo, Spain on the way to Lisbon and the Atlantic Ocean. The Port of Lisbon, one of the most important ports on the continent, sits right at the mouth of the river on the Atlantic coast.

France's longest river, the Loire runs through the famous Loire Valley, one of the nation's known wine regions and home to the cities of Tours, Angers, and Orléans. The Loire River runs just over one thousand kilometres (about the same length of the Tagus) from a spot just west of Grenoble northward to Orléans and then west to the Atlantic through Tours, Angers, Nantes, and Saint-Nazaire on the coast.

Naturally, the region has a rich history; the river was the lifeblood of the region as far back as the Roman era.

The Seine River starts its 777 kilometre course through the nation of France near the City of Dijon but most know it as being the river that courses through the capital city of Paris. Other cities that appear along its westward route include Reims in the Champagne Region, Rouen, and Le Havre, which marks the mouth of the river on the Atlantic Coast.

Europe's second-longest river, the Rhine runs 1,230 km across the continent, carving its way through Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Cities along the route include Cologne, Rotterdam, and Strasbourg (amongst others).

The Rhine originates in the glaciers of the Alps and expels into the North Sea on the Dutch coastline. Interestingly, the River Rhine passes through only a single lake on its way to the sea-- Lake Constance in the Swiss Alps on the Swiss, German, and Austrian border.

Italy's longest river, the Po cuts due east along the northern portion of the country starting near Torino and heading onward towards Venice, flowing out into the Northern Adriatic. Stretching 652 kilometres, it was an important waterway for agriculture in the region (specifically around Milan and Ferrara), but it was nowhere near as important, historically, compared to other waterways like the Arno in Tuscany and the Tiber in Rome.

Starting high in the mountains of the Northern Czech Republic, the Elbe River is a long one heading 1,094 kilometres through Central Europe before spilling into the North Sea. This one cuts from the Czech Republic into Germany without passing through any other countries, hitting both Dresden and Hamburg along the way.

Historically, the Elbe has acted as a borderline for empires of yesteryear, acting as a natural barrier to keep out foreign forces on the quest for conquest.

Running for 1,047 kilometres, the Vistula River is the longest in the nation of Poland; though it drains into a handful of adjacent nations, the main course of this waterway is entirely within the country. Starting in the Carpathian Mountains it winds through Poland to Gdansk Bay on the Baltic Sea coast. If you rode a boat from the sea, you would eventually reach both Warsaw and Kraków, some of Poland's largest and oldest cities.

Also known as the Dnipro, the Dnieper River is the fourth-longest river on the European continent, stretching 2,200 kilometres through Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine and into the Black Sea in the city of Kherson. A notably wide river, especially as it carves its way through Ukraine, the Dnieper is the main waterway that connects Kyiv to the sea and, from there, to the greater waterways of the world (as the Bosphorus connects it to the Mediterranean).

It's an important river for the region as its waters provide hydroelectricity for most of Ukraine.

A river that only cuts through Ukraine save for a small portion that creates its border with Moldova to the southwest, the Dniester River is 1,362 kilometres in length. Fed by headwaters in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine's western reach, it spills into the Black Sea in the Odessa Oblast passing by Tiraspol along the route and creating the primary shipping artery for the Transnistria region.

The longest river of those labelled on the map, the Danube is the second-longest waterway in Europe only to the Volga in Russia. Cutting across ten different countries, it's the river that happens to pass through capital cities including Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, and Belgrade.

It passes through more independent nations than any other river in the world, starting in Germany and coasting 2,850 kilometres into the Black Sea at the Danube Delta, a vast wetland region shared between Romania and Ukraine.