Waterways in EU and US Regions

The chart above shows the length of waterways in EU and US regions.  The Southern US has the most waterways but it is followed by three EU regions.

Findings

• The difference between the region with the most waterways, the Southern US, and the region with the least, the Southern EU, is 14,609 miles (23,511 km).
• The Southern US has 16.05 times the waterways that the Southern EU does.
• Only the Southern US and the Western EU have more than 10,000 miles (16,093 km) of waterways.
• Only the Southern EU has less than 1,000 miles (1,609 km) of waterways.

Caveats

• EU waterway data is from 2016 except for Belgium (2008), Germany (2013), Luxembourg (2009), and Romania (2015).  US waterway data is from 2013.
• EU and US data come from different sources and may define waterways differently.
• All figures are rounded to the nearest whole.
• Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden from the EU and Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming from the US did not have any data.
• The Southern US consists of Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
• The Western EU consists of Germany, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, and Luxembourg.
• The Eastern EU consists of Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
• The Northern EU consists of Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.
• The Midwestern US consists of Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
• The Western US consists of California, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
• The Northeastern US consists of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
• The Southern EU consists of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta.

Details

The Southern US and the Western EU account for over half the waterways in both the EU and the US.  The Southern US by itself accounts for just under one-third of the waterways in both superstates.

The European Union as a whole has 26,046 miles (41,917 km) of waterways.  The United States as a whole has 24,110 miles (38,801 km) of waterways.

Sources

Eurostat.  2018.  "Data Explorer."  Accessed May 30, 2018.  http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKMARK_DS-054762_QID_-228626FA_UID_-3F171EB0&layout=TIME,C,X,0;GEO,L,Y,0;UNIT,L,Z,0;TRA_INFR,L,Z,1;WEIGHT,L,Z,2;INDICATORS,C,Z,3;&zSelection=DS-054762UNIT,KM;DS-054762WEIGHT,TOTAL;DS-054762TRA_INFR,TOTAL;DS-054762INDICATORS,OBS_FLAG;&rankName1=TRA-INFR_1_2_-1_2&rankName2=UNIT_1_2_-1_2&rankName3=WEIGHT_1_2_-1_2&rankName4=INDICATORS_1_2_-1_2&rankName5=TIME_1_0_0_0&rankName6=GEO_1_2_0_1&sortC=ASC_-1_FIRST&rStp=&cStp=&rDCh=&cDCh=&rDM=true&cDM=true&footnes=false&empty=false&wai=false&time_mode=NONE&time_most_recent=false&lang=EN&cfo=%23%23%23%2C%23%23%23.%23%23%23.

United States Department of Transportation.  2015.  "State Transportation by the Numbers."  Accessed March 21, 2018.  https://www.bts.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/legacy/_entire.pdf.