The Ganges River flows through northern India and Bangladesh, stretching 2,525 kilometers (about 1,570 miles) from its source in the Himalayas to its mouth at the Bay of Bengal. It passes through five Indian states, crosses into Bangladesh, and supports over 600 million people along the way, making it one of the most important rivers on Earth.
Source in the Himalayas
The Ganges begins as meltwater from the Gangotri Glacier, a massive ice formation more than 30 kilometers long in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, India. The glacier’s snout, called Gaumukh (meaning “cow’s mouth”), sits at about 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) elevation, where it feeds a stream called the Bhagirathi. This stream tumbles down through a narrow Himalayan valley for roughly 250 kilometers before the river officially becomes the Ganges at the town of Devprayag, where the Bhagirathi meets another mountain river called the Alaknanda. The Gangotri Glacier itself originates from peaks reaching about 7,010 meters above sea level.
Path Through Northern India
From Devprayag, the Ganges continues descending through its Himalayan valley until it reaches Rishikesh, then spills onto the vast Gangetic Plain at Haridwar. This is the first major city on its banks, and it marks a dramatic transition: the river shifts from a fast mountain stream to a wide, slower waterway flowing southeast across one of the most densely populated regions on the planet.
The river passes through five Indian states along its main stem: Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, and West Bengal. Its entire drainage basin covers roughly 1,086,000 square kilometers across India, Nepal, Tibet (China), and Bangladesh.
After Haridwar, the Ganges flows through Uttar Pradesh, where a barrage diverts a large portion of its water into the Upper Ganga Canal for irrigation. It continues southeast to Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad), where the Yamuna River joins it at a confluence Hindus consider sacred. From there, the river passes through a string of cities: Varanasi, Patna, Bhagalpur, and many others before reaching West Bengal. At Farakka, near the Bangladesh border, another barrage splits the flow, sending some water south through the Hooghly River channel toward Kolkata and Howrah.
Into Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal
After Farakka, the main channel of the Ganges crosses into Bangladesh, where it takes the name Padma. The Padma merges with the Jamuna River (the Bangladeshi name for the Brahmaputra), then joins the Meghna River before emptying into the Bay of Bengal. At the coast, the river forms the Ganges Delta, about 350 kilometers wide and spanning parts of both Bangladesh and West Bengal. It is the largest river delta in the world.
Major Cities Along Its Banks
The Ganges connects an extraordinary number of significant cities. Starting from the mountains and moving downstream:
- Haridwar is where the river first meets the plains and draws millions of Hindu pilgrims.
- Prayagraj sits at the confluence with the Yamuna, a site considered one of the holiest in Hinduism.
- Varanasi is perhaps the most famous city on the Ganges, regarded as the holiest place to die in Hinduism. Cremations take place on its riverbank ghats continuously.
- Patna, the capital of Bihar, is one of the largest cities on the river.
- Kolkata and Howrah sit on the Hooghly branch of the river near the coast in West Bengal.
Between Prayagraj and the sea, the river also passes through Mirzapur, Ghazipur, Munger, Bhagalpur, Rajmahal, Murshidabad, and Nabadwip, among many others.
Why the Ganges Matters
More than 600 million people depend on the Ganges basin for drinking water, farming, and livelihoods. The basin accounts for roughly 40% of India’s gross domestic product. Agriculture is the primary livelihood for a huge share of this population, which makes the river’s health a direct economic concern. During a period of historically low water levels from 2015 to 2017, disruptions to drinking water, irrigation, power generation, and river navigation affected over 120 million people.
A 2025 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the Ganges is experiencing a drying trend unprecedented in the last 1,300 years, raising serious concerns about long-term water and food security across the region. For a river that feeds one of the most populated stretches of land on Earth, the stakes of that decline are enormous.
Religious Significance
The Ganges is sacred to Hindus along its entire length. Bathing in the river is believed to cleanse sins and help a person attain salvation. Three cities in particular, Haridwar, Prayagraj, and Varanasi, attract millions of pilgrims each year who come specifically to immerse themselves in its waters. Varanasi holds a unique status: Hindus believe that dying there and being cremated on the riverbank grants instant spiritual liberation. The river’s religious importance is inseparable from its geography, and it shapes how hundreds of millions of people relate to this single body of water.