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Atrato River

The 571st longest river in the world

644 km

The Atrato River (Río Atrato) is a river of northwestern Colombia. It rises in the slopes of the Western Cordillera and flows almost due north to the Gulf of Urabá (or Gulf of Darién), where it forms a large, swampy delta. Its course crosses the Chocó Department, forming that department's border with neighboring Antioquia in two places. Its total length is about 650 km (400 mi), and it is navigable as far as Quibdó (400 km / 250 mi), the capital of the department. In 2016, the Constitutional Court of Colombia granted the river legal rights of personhood after years of degradation of the river basin from large-scale mining and illegal logging practices, which severely impacted the traditional ways of life for Afro-Colombians and Indigenous people.

Flows through: Colombia.

River data from Wikidata (CC0); lengths normalised to a common unit.

Other major rivers

  1. Amazon6,992 km
  2. Nile6,650 km
  3. Yangtze River6,300 km
  4. Bian River5,806 km
  5. Yellow River5,464 km
  6. Paraná River4,880 km
  7. River Congo4,700 km
  8. Mekong River4,350 km