The river of port wine, winding through steep terraced vineyards from Spain to the sea at Porto.
Length
897 km
Source
Picos de Urbión, Spain
Mouth
Atlantic Ocean (Porto)
Continent
Europe
Countries
Spain & Portugal
Did you know?
The Douro valley is the oldest demarcated wine region in the world, defined back in 1756.
Little-known fact
Its hillsides are carved into countless stone terraces, hand-built over centuries to grow grapes on near-vertical slopes.
Highlights
- The river of port wine
- World's oldest demarcated wine region
- Lined by hand-built terraces
Life in the Douro
The fish and animals, waterbirds and water plants — including some of the rarest — that this water supports.
Animals & fish
Atlantic salmon
The “king of fish” — it is born in a river, grows at sea, then fights its way back upstream to spawn where it hatched.
Eurasian otter
A sleek, playful hunter whose return to a river is a sign the water has run clean again.
Waterbirds
Grey heron
A patient, statue-still angler that stalks the shallows of rivers and lakes across the Old World.
Mallard
The familiar green-headed dabbling duck — ancestor of most domestic ducks — found on waters worldwide.
Interactive · 3D journey
Journey of a river · source → sea
Every river runs the same great journey — from an icy mountain spring, down through gorges and looping meanders, to a wide delta where it meets the sea. Tap a stage to follow the water downstream.
Tip: hover to tilt the valley · tap a stage to float downstream
The Source
Every river begins high up — in a mountain spring, a melting glacier or a boggy upland. The water is cold, clear and fast, tumbling down the steepest ground of its whole journey.
Landforms here