River · Greece
Aliakmonas
The Aliakmonas is the longest river that stays inside Greece from beginning to end. It starts high in the north-western mountains and empties into the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea.
Picture credit: GoumasNikos (CC BY-SA 3.0) · FloatinggateOfTime (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Katerina Kreka (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Aliakmonas?
The river starts here: Mountains of north-western Greece.
It ends in the Thermaic Gulf, Aegean Sea.
Countries on the river: Greece.
The story behind it
The Aliakmonas comes down from wild, wooded mountains where bears, wolves and wild boar still live, and where the winter snow lies deep. Lower down it has been stopped by several dams, and the reservoirs behind them shine turquoise between bare hillsides. One long bridge crosses the water so high above it that cars look like beetles from a boat. Villages grow peaches, apricots and cotton with water led out of the river in summer, when weeks can pass without rain and the level sinks. In the delta, reeds and shallow lagoons attract flamingos, pelicans and herons, and fishermen set nets for eels. Storks nest on chimneys in the villages nearby. People in northern Greece call the Aliakmonas their own river, because unlike most big rivers here it never crosses a border.
Questions children ask
How long is the Aliakmonas?
The Aliakmonas is about 297 km long. The whole course lies in Greece, which makes it the longest river of the country from source to sea.
Which country does the Aliakmonas flow through?
Only through Greece. It crosses the northern part of the country and never touches a neighbouring state.
Where does the Aliakmonas flow into?
It reaches the Thermaic Gulf, a bay of the Aegean Sea. Its delta is a flat land of reeds and lagoons that is protected as a home for water birds.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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