Into which body of water does the Volga River flow?

The Volga River flows into the Caspian Sea.

The Volga rises in the Valdai Hills of western Russia and travels roughly 3,530 kilometres southward through the heart of the country. It passes cities including Tver, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara and Volgograd before dividing into a broad delta near Astrakhan and reaching the Caspian Sea.

The Volga is Europe’s longest river and has one of the continent’s largest drainage basins. Its major tributaries include the Kama and Oka. Reservoirs along its course support navigation, hydroelectric power, industry and agriculture, while the river remains a powerful symbol in Russian history and culture.

The Caspian Sea is an endorheic, or closed, body of water: it has no natural outlet to the world’s oceans, with water leaving mainly through evaporation. This explains why the Volga is sometimes described as the world’s longest river flowing into a closed basin. The White, Baltic and Black seas are connected to Russia’s waterways, but the Volga does not naturally empty into them.