freshwater

For over a century, the Nile has been called the longest river on Earth at about 6,650 kilometres. But a stubborn group of scientists argues the Amazon is actually longer — and the disagreement isn't sloppiness. It comes down to a genuinely hard question: where does a river begin, and where does it end? The answer changes the ranking, and reveals why even something as basic as 'how long is this river' has no single correct number.

Brazil has the world's largest total renewable freshwater resources — approximately 8,647 cubic kilometers per year, more than any other country and roughly 20 percent of the global total. Russia is second at 4,525 km³/year, Canada third at 2,860 km³/year. But total volume is only part of the story: Canada's per-capita freshwater availability is 36 times higher than China's. And water stress — not total availability — is the defining water challenge of the twenty-first century. This ranking covers the top 20 countries by total renewable freshwater resources, sourced from FAO AQUASTAT, with per-capita comparison and analysis of global water scarcity.

WRI's 2023 Aqueduct update puts 25 countries, home to about a quarter of humanity, in the extremely high water stress category. Here is who ranks worst, why the rankings disagree, and what Cape Town, Chennai, the Aral Sea, and Israel show about causes and fixes.

No single list ranks countries by lake count, because the answer depends on how small a pond you are willing to call a lake. Here is what the national surveys and satellite inventories actually say, and which lakes hold the most water.