River · Moldova
Prut
Prut is the longest river connected with Moldova, a small country in eastern Europe. It comes from the Carpathian Mountains and runs south along the western side of the land. At Giurgiulesti it meets the Danube.
Picture credit: Varga Attila (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Володимир Тертишник (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Prut?
The river starts here: Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine.
It ends in the the Danube at Giurgiulesti.
Countries on the river: Moldova.
The story behind it
For almost its whole lower course the Prut is a border: on one bank lies Moldova, on the other Romania, and bridges between the two are rare, so the river both joins and separates the people who live there. Its water is often cloudy and yellow-brown, because it carries fine soil from the hills. Wide meadows, willow woods and reed beds line the banks; storks and herons hunt frogs there in summer, and in autumn flocks of ducks rest on the lakes near the mouth. Long ago the river flooded villages after the snowmelt, so dams and a big reservoir were built to hold the water back. Because the Prut is shared with two neighbouring countries, its exact length is not always given in the same way.
Questions children ask
How long is the Prut?
Which country does the Prut belong to?
In this encyclopaedia the Prut is listed as the longest river of Moldova. It forms the western border of the country for hundreds of kilometres. On the opposite bank lies Romania, so both states use the same water.
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.
Last checked: