River · Myanmar
Irrawaddy
Irrawaddy is the longest river of Myanmar, a country in South-East Asia. It is born in the northern mountains and flows almost straight south through the whole land. Its wide delta opens into the Andaman Sea.
Picture credit: Jakub Hałun (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Christophe95 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Irrawaddy?
The river starts here: meeting of the Mali and Nmai rivers in northern Myanmar.
It ends in the Irrawaddy Delta, Andaman Sea.
Countries on the river: Myanmar.
The story behind it
The Irrawaddy has been the main road of Myanmar for a very long time. Ferries, fishing boats and long barges loaded with rice and teak move up and down it, and villages of bamboo houses stand on stilts along the banks. At Bagan thousands of brick temples rise from the plain above the water, and further downstream lies Mandalay with its river market. When the monsoon rains come between June and October, the river swells, floods the fields and leaves behind fresh mud that makes the soil rich; in the dry season long sandbanks appear and boats must find the deeper channel. Rare Irrawaddy dolphins with rounded heads still live in the middle course, and fishers work together with them: the dolphins drive fish towards the nets.
Questions children ask
How long is the Irrawaddy?
The Irrawaddy is 2 288 kilometres long. The whole river lies inside Myanmar, from the northern mountains to the delta. It is one of the great rivers of South-East Asia.
Which country does the Irrawaddy flow through?
The Irrawaddy flows only through Myanmar. It divides the country into an eastern and a western half. Most large cities, among them Mandalay, stand on or close to its banks.
Where does the Irrawaddy flow into the sea?
The Irrawaddy ends in a huge delta on the Andaman Sea. There the river splits into many arms and countless small waterways. Rice fields and mangrove woods cover that low, wet land.
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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