Friday, September 11, 2026 Search My Trip EnglishChinese
World news · travel · culture
Taiwan The Taiwan Times
Taiwan's window to the world

Jostedøla

The 883rd longest river in the world

km

Jostedøla (or unofficially: Jostedalselva) is a river which runs through the Jostedalen valley in Luster Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The Jostedøla river begins near the Fåbergstølen mountain farm where the runoff from the great Jostedalsbreen glacier and the lakes Austdalsvatnet and Styggevatnet comes together in the Jostedalen valley. It then flows south for about 50 kilometres (31 mi), through the Jostedalen valley, and finally empties into the Gaupnefjorden (a small arm off of the Sognefjorden) at the village of Gaupne. The river is the main collector of water for an 804-square-kilometre (310 sq mi) watershed area. The river is great for fishing trout and some salmon. The river has historically brought significant flooding. In August 1979, the river had a 100-year flood due to local rain and strong snow and glacial melting. The flood was higher than the previous one-hundred year flood in 1898. The Leirdøla power plant was built in 1978, which has helped reduce the flood risk along the waterway.

Flows through: Norway.

River data from Wikidata (CC0); lengths normalised to a common unit.

Other major rivers

  1. Amazon6,992 km
  2. Nile6,650 km
  3. Yangtze River6,300 km
  4. Bian River5,806 km
  5. Yellow River5,464 km
  6. Paraná River4,880 km
  7. River Congo4,700 km
  8. Mekong River4,350 km