World's 10 most powerful rivers

New Delhi: How many times have you gone to a riverside and stood watching it flow from a riverbank? What if S D Burman's soulful tunes start wafting across the river breeze making you drip with emotion? It's common for people to watch a placid, flowing river in the plains, but have you watched a powerful river gushing off in furious torrents? For that, in India, you would have to go to the North-east to watch our only powerful river, the Brahmaputra. For the rest, you have travel across the world. Here is a list of the world's 10 most powerful rivers: (This list is based upon the flow rate of the river itself) 1. Amazon River The Amazon River (US) or River Amazon (UK) of South America is the largest river in the world with a total discharge greater than the next ten largest rivers combined. The Amazon, which has the largest drainage basin in the world, about 7,050,000 square kilometres (2,720,000 sq mi), accounts for approximately one-fifth of the world's total river flow. In its upper stretches the Amazon river is called Apurímac (in Peru) and Solimões (in Brazil). The width of the Amazon varies between 1.6 and 10 kilometres (0.99 and 6.2 mi) at low stage, but expands during the wet season to 48 kilometres (30 mi) or more. The river enters the Atlantic Ocean in a broad estuary about 240 kilometres (150 mi) wide. The mouth of the main stem is 80 kilometres (50 mi). Because of its vast dimensions, it is sometimes called The River Sea. At no point is the Amazon crossed by bridges. This is not because of its huge dimensions; in fact, for most of its length, the Amazon's width is well within the capability of modern engineers to bridge. However, the bulk of the river flows through tropical rainforest, where there are few roads and even fewer cities, so there is no need for crossings. 2. Congo River The Congo River (also known as the Zaire River) is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of 230 m (750 ft). It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon. Additionally, its overall length of 4,700 km (2,920 mi) makes it the tenth longest river. Its drainage basin covers 4,014,500 square kilometres (1,550,000 sq mi). The Congo's discharge at its mouth ranges from 23,000 cubic metres per second (810,000 cu ft/s) to 75,000 cubic metres per second (2,600,000 cu ft/s), with an average of 41,000 cubic metres per second (1.4Eƴ cu ft/s). 3. Orinoco River The Orinoco is one of the longest rivers in South America at 2,140 km, (1,330 miles). Its drainage basin, sometimes called the Orinoquia, covers 880,000 km², 76.3% in Venezuela with the rest in Colombia. The Orinoco and its tributaries are the major transportation system for eastern and interior Venezuela and the llanos of Colombia. 4. Yangtze River The Yangtze River, or Chang Jiang is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for 6,300 kilometres (3,915 mi) from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the biggest rivers by discharge volume in the world. The Yangtze drains one-fifth of China's land area and its river basin is home to one-third of China's population. Along with the Yellow River, the Yangtze is the most important river in the history, culture and economy of China. The prosperous Yangtze River Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP. The river is an important physical and cultural dividing line between North and South China. Chinese living north of the Yangtze speak varying dialects of Mandarin. Most of the provinces south of the river have native Sinitic languages that are unintelligible to Mandarin-speakers. 5. Brahmaputra River The Brahmaputra, also called Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, is a trans-boundary river and one of the major rivers of Asia. From its origin in southwestern Tibet as the Yarlung Tsangpo River, it flows across southern Tibet to break through the Himalayas in great gorges and into Arunachal Pradesh (India) where it is known as Dihang. It flows southwest through the Assam Valley as Brahmaputra and south through Bangladesh as the Jamuna (not to be mistaken with Yamuna of India). There it merges with the Ganges to form a vast delta, the Sunderbans. About 1,800 miles (2,900 km) long, the river is an important source for irrigation and transportation. Its upper course was long unknown, and its identity with the Yarlung Tsangpo was only established by exploration in 1884-86. This river is often called Tsangpo-Brahmaputra river. The average depth of river is 124 feet (38 m) and maximum depth is 380 feet (120 m). In Bangladesh the river merges with the Ganges and splits into two: the Padma and Meghna River. While most rivers on the Indian subcontinent have female names, this river has a rare male name, as it means "son of Brahma" in Sanskrit (putra means "son"). 6. Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. About 2,320 miles (3,730 km) long, the river originates at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, and flows slowly southwards in sweeping meanders, terminating 95 miles (153 km) by river below New Orleans, where it begins to flow to the Gulf of Mexico. Along with its major tributary, the Missouri River, the river drains all or parts of 31 U.S. states stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Canada–US border on the north, including most of the Great Plains, and is the fourth longest river in the world and the tenth most powerful river in the world. The current form of the Mississippi River basin was largely shaped by the Laurentide Ice Sheet of the most recent Ice Age. The southernmost extent of this enormous glaciation extended well into the present-day United States and Mississippi basin. When the ice sheet began to recede, hundreds of feet of rich sediment were deposited, creating the flat and fertile landscape of the Mississippi Valley. During the melt, giant glacial rivers found drainage paths into the Mississippi watershed, creating such features as the Minnesota River, James River, and Milk River valleys. When the ice sheet completely retreated, many of these "temporary" rivers found paths to Hudson Bay or the Arctic Ocean, leaving the Mississippi Basin with many features "oversized" for the existing rivers to have carved in the same time period. The Mississippi River Delta has shifted and changed constantly since the formation of the river, but the construction of dams on the river has greatly reduced the flow of sediment to the delta. In recent years, the Mississippi's mouth has shown a steady shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel, but because of floodworks at the river's mouth, this change of course—which would be catastrophic for seaports at the river mouth—has been held at bay. 7. Yenisey River Yenisei, also written as Yenisey, is the greatest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean. Rising in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course to the Yenisei Gulf in the Kara Sea, draining a large part of central Siberia, the longest stream following the Yenisei-Angara-Selenga-Ider. The upper reaches, subject to rapids and flooding, pass through sparsely populated areas. The middle section is controlled by a series of massive hydroelectric dams fuelling significant Russian primary industry. Partly built by gulag labor in Soviet times, industrial contamination remains a serious problem in an area hard to police. Moving on through sparsely-populated taiga, the Yenisei swells with numerous tributaries and finally reaches the Kara Sea in desolate tundra where it is icebound for more than half the year. 8. Parana River The Paraná River (Spanish: Río Paraná, Portuguese: Rio Paraná) is a river in south central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina for some 4,880 kilometres (3,030 mi). This length increases to over 5,880 kilometres (3,650 mi) if the distance is counted from the headwaters of the Paranaiba River in Brazil, and to over 6,170 kilometres (3,830 mi) if the Río de la Plata is included as well. It is second in length only to the Amazon River among South American rivers. The name Paraná is an abbreviation of the phrase "para rehe onáva", which comes from the Tupi language and means "like the sea" (that is, "as big as the sea"). It merges first with the Paraguay River and then farther downstream with the Uruguay River to form the Río de la Plata and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. 9. Lena River The Lena is the easternmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean (the other two being the Ob River and the Yenisei River). It is the 11th longest river in the world and has the 9th largest watershed. It is the greatest Russian river with its watershed entirely within national ranges. 10. Mekong River The Mekong is one of the world's major rivers. It is the world's 12th-longest river and the 7th-longest in Asia. Its estimated length is 4,350 km (2,703 mi), and it drains an area of 795,000 km2 (307,000 sq mi), discharging 475 km3 (114 cu mi) of water annually. From the Tibetan Plateau this river runs through China's Yunnan province, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam established the Mekong River Commission in 1995 to assist in the management and coordinated use of the Mekong's resources. In 1996 China and Burma became "dialogue partners" of the MRC and the six countries now work together within a cooperation framework. The extreme seasonal variations in flow and the presence of rapids and waterfalls in this river have made navigation extremely difficult.