Sénégal River

The Sénégal River is one of the longest rivers in Mauritania that runs for 1,020 km (1,641 km). It has a drainage basin of 174,000 square miles (450,000 square km). Two of the river's three headstreams originate in Guinea's Fouta Djallon highlands, after which it travels northwest before draining into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes the border between Mauritania to the north and Senegal to the south for 515 miles (830 kilometers) of its journey.

Reports of The Sénégal River's presence as the "River of Gold" reached European navigators in the Middle Ages. The river served as a pathway for French colonial influence from the 16th to the 20th centuries. At least as early as 1558, French ships reached the estuary. Reconnaissance groups traveled 160 miles upriver from a French fort erected in 1638 to Podor. In 1659, on N'Dar Island in the estuary, a bigger fort was built and called Saint-Louis-du-Sénégal after the French monarch Louis IX (St. Louis).

Length: 1.800 km