The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America.About 2,320 miles (3,730 km) long, the river originates at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, and flows slowly southwards in sweeping meanders, terminating 95 miles (153 km).
The Amazon River of South America is the second longest river in the world with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined.
The Kapuas River is a river in the Indonesian part of Borneo island, at the geographic center of Maritime Southeast Asia. At 1,143 kilometers in length, it is the longest river of Indonesia and one of the world's longest island rivers.
The Ganges or Ganga,is a trans-boundary river of India and Bangladesh.The 2,525 km (1,569 mi) river rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.
The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for 6,418 kilometres from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest,central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai.
The Yangtze is home to at least three critically endangered species: The Chinese Alligator, the Finless Porpoise and the Chinese Paddlefish. (This is the only other place besides the U.S. that is native to an alligator species.) The Finless Porpoise were counted in 2010 to be 1000 exemplars. More species have become extinct in the Yangtze than in any other river in China. This is due to commercial use of the river coupled with tourism and pollution. In December 2006, the Baiji (Chinese River Dolphin) was declared functionally extinct after an extensive search of the river revealed no signs of the dolphin's inhabitance; however, one was sighted soon after.
As of 2007, there are two dams built on the Yangtze river: Three Gorges Dam and Gezhouba Dam with a third one, Xiluodu Dam under construction. More dams are in planning stage, such as Wudongde, Baihetan, and Xiangjiaba.