River · Italy
Po
Po is the longest river in Italy, flowing 652 kilometres from the Alps across the wide plain of northern Italy. It ends in a broad delta on the Adriatic Sea, close to the town of Adria.
Picture credit: Ambra75 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Po?
The river starts here: Monte Viso in the Cottian Alps, Italy.
It ends in the Adriatic Sea, through the Po Delta near Adria in Veneto.
Countries on the river: Italy.
The story behind it
The Po starts as a cold mountain stream below Monte Viso and grows wider with every valley river that joins it from the Alps and the Apennines. Its whole course stays inside Italy, although the rain and snow that feed it also fall in Switzerland and France. Some maps give the river a slightly greater length, because they start counting at a different headstream, so the numbers you read can differ by a few kilometres. Along the banks stand Turin, Piacenza and Cremona, and between them lie fields of rice, maize and poplar trees. In spring the melting snow can push the water high against the long earth dykes, while in hot summers the level drops and sandbanks appear. In the delta, herons, flamingos and eels live among the reeds and the quiet channels.
Questions children ask
How long is the Po river?
The river measures 652 kilometres from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea. No other river in Italy runs further, and some maps count a few extra kilometres because they begin at another headstream.
Which countries does the Po flow through?
From its source to the sea the river stays inside Italy, crossing Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto. Water from Swiss and French mountains still reaches it through smaller rivers that drain into the same basin.
Where does the Po flow into the sea?
The water reaches the Adriatic Sea south of Venice, near the small town of Adria. There the river splits into several arms and builds a wide delta of reeds, lagoons and sandy islands.
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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