The Lena River
Lena River, one of the world's longest rivers and the longest in Russia. Its length is about 2,650 miles (4,265 km). The Lena's source is in the Baykal Range near Lake Baykal, in south-central Siberia. The river flows generally northeast and then north, emptying into the Laptev Sea of the Arctic Ocean. It reaches a width of 8 1/2 miles (14 km) in some places; its delta is 150 miles (240 km) wide. The Lena has some 1,000 tributaries and drains an area of 936,000 square miles (1,506,000 km2). Its most important tributaries are the Aldan and the Vilyui.
The Lena is navigable almost from source to mouth, but is frozen in the north except in summer. The region through which it flows is sparsely populated. Yakutsk is the only important town on the Lena. Mining of gold, coal, and iron ore is the chief occupation in the basin.