If asked in a quiz to name Australia's longest river, you would be best advised to answer "the Murray." But the Darling is arguably longer.
The Darling is a tributary of the Murray, and these two together with all their tributaries form a river system that drains about one seventh of Australia's land mass – including most of the states of New South Wales and Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, and parts of Queensland and South Australia.
According to Wikipedia, the Murray river is 1,558 miles (2,508 kilometres) long, and the Darling 915 miles (1,472 kilometres). But Britannica, while it pretty much agrees about the length of the Murray (1,570 miles / 2,530 km), gives the length of the Darling as 1,702 miles (2,739 kilometres) – almost twice as much as Wikipedia, and over 130 miles longer than the Murray.
The difference would seem to be that Britannica is measuring the length of the Darling from its "main source", some 175 miles south–west of Brisbane. But at that point the river is called the Severn, "which becomes successively the Dumaresq, Macintyre, Barwon, and, finally, the Darling." The 1,702–mile length would appear to include all of those rivers, while Wikipedia seems only to be measuring from the point at which the river becomes known as the Darling.
With the Murray there is no such issue, as it's known by that name from its source in the Snowy Mountains (not far from Mount Koscuiusko, Australia's highest mountain).
After being joined by the Darling, the Murray River flows into South Australia before reaching the sea. The South Australian Government describes it as Australia's longest river; and that, I would suggest, makes it official.
The total length of the Murray River below the confluence measures about 400 miles, making the maximum length of the Murray/Darling river system about 2,100 miles – the 18th longest in the world.
According to Wikipedia, the Darling is Australia's third longest river. The second longest is the Murrumbidgee – another tributary of the Murray. This one rises in south–eastern New South Wales, flowing through the Australian Capital Territory and the famous outback town of Wagga Wagga. It joins the Murray some 50 miles before the Darling.
This map (on Wikipedia) gives a clear overview of the Murray, Darling and Murrumbidgee rivers. Note that Walgett (the first place shown along the course of the Darling) is actually on the Barwon – some 100 miles, as the crow flies, from where the McIntyre becomes the Barwon; and this in turn is some 100 miles from the place named by Britannica as the "main source" of the Darling. Bourke, the next place shown, is just below the point where the Barwon becomes the Darling.
© Haydn Thompson 2024