River · Spain
Ebro
Ebro is the longest river that runs only through Spain. It starts in the Cantabrian Mountains in the north, crosses a wide dry basin and reaches the Mediterranean Sea at the famous Ebro Delta.
Picture credit: Владимир Шеляпин (CC0) · Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga) (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Krzysztof Golik (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Ebro?
The river starts here: Cantabrian Mountains in northern Spain.
It ends in the the Mediterranean Sea at the Ebro Delta.
Countries on the river: Spain.
The story behind it
The Ebro collects snowmelt from the Pyrenees and from the mountains of the north, then carries it through one of the driest parts of Spain. Along its banks stand old cities such as Logroño, Zaragoza and Tortosa, where bridges and water mills have stood for centuries. Farmers lead the water into canals to grow vegetables, peaches and rice, and in summer the river can shrink while the fields drink deeply. Ospreys, herons and huge catfish live in its reservoirs. At the end the Ebro builds a delta that pushes far out into the sea: flat rice fields, lagoons and sandy spits where flamingos wade and thousands of birds rest on their journey. The delta is slowly losing sand, because dams upstream now hold back much of the mud the river once delivered.
Questions children ask
How long is the Ebro?
The Ebro is about 930 km long. It is the longest river lying entirely inside Spain, and it also carries more water than any other Spanish river.
Which country does the Ebro flow through?
The Ebro flows only through Spain, from Cantabria in the north-west to Catalonia on the east coast. On the way it passes La Rioja, Navarre and Aragon.
Where does the Ebro flow into?
It flows into the Mediterranean Sea through the Ebro Delta south of Tortosa. The delta is a flat landscape of rice fields and lagoons and a protected home for many 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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