River · Namibia
Fish River
Fish River is the longest river inside Namibia and crosses a very dry land. It has carved a gigantic canyon into the rock. In the south it joins the Orange River.
Picture credit: Hp.Baumeler (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Fish River?
The river starts here: Naukluft Mountains in central Namibia.
It ends in the Orange River on the border with South Africa.
Countries on the river: Namibia.
The story behind it
For most of the year the Fish River is not a river at all, but a chain of still pools in a stony bed. Only after heavy summer rain does the water come roaring down, brown and full of branches, and then it can disappear again within weeks. Over millions of years this rhythm cut the Fish River Canyon, a crack in the desert about a hundred and sixty kilometres long and so deep that people at the top look like ants. Hikers walk through it in winter, sleeping under the stars, while baboons bark from the cliffs and klipspringer antelopes jump across the rocks. At the southern end warm springs bubble out of the ground at Ai-Ais. Farmers store the rare floodwater in dams for their sheep and goats.
Questions children ask
How long is the Fish River?
The river is about 650 kilometres long. That makes it the longest river lying completely inside Namibia. For much of the year, though, most of that bed is dry.
Which country does the Fish River flow through?
It runs only through Namibia, from the centre of the country to the far south. At its very end it meets the Orange River, which is the border with South Africa. So its water finally leaves the country there.
Where does the Fish River end?
It flows into the Orange River on the southern border of Namibia. Together they carry the water westwards to the Atlantic. In dry months hardly anything arrives at the meeting point.
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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