The Longest Caves of the World

Cave length is a number that can be extracted from survey data. It is quite easy to determine once a cave is surveyed, and although it is not the only way to measure the size of caves, it is the only one that is well defined and internationally accepted.

Length and depth are the only size parameters of caves recorded in international statistics, see below the link to the pages of the Geology and Geography Section of the National Speleological Society. There are different lists for long caves, first an international one, then one for each country. All these lists include mostly karst caves because they are generally longer than other types of caves. In the second place are lava tubes, so there are also lists just for lava tubes. And of course there are other lists for other types of caves, such as gypsum caves or sea caves.

Like other statistics, they change frequently and the position of a cave may change each time the list is updated. However, the caves in first place are so much longer than those in second that it is unlikely that others will catch up with them any time soon.

As I said, there are several ways to measure the size of caves. Alternative representative measures are the area of the floor and the volume of a cave. Both are quite easy to calculate with good software, but they require surveying techniques that are uncommon and vary from country to country. It is necessary to do a full 3D scan of the cave, which is very time-consuming, and the necessary equipment is still very expensive and quite sensitive.

There is a traditional way to use classical surveying techniques. In addition to the normal survey data, which consists of a kind of polygon through the corridors, the distance to the walls and to the ceiling and floor must be recorded. The distance to the walls indicates the width of the passage, which is necessary for calculating the area of the floor. In addition, the distance to the ceiling and floor and the shape of the passage is needed to calculate the volume. These data are not collected in most surveys, and furthermore, the results are extremely inaccurate due to the irregular shapes of most caves. In recent years, international lists of caves by area or volume have been compiled, but the accuracy is quite doubtful.

Name	Location	Length	Description
Mammoth Cave System, to be exact the Mammoth Cave - Flint Ridge System	Kentucky, U.S.A.	663.050 m [2021]	is the longest (karst) cave of the world. The measured length at the moment is 663.050 [2021], more than 663 kilometres, and it has become 75 km longer in the last 15 years! This is so much longer than any other cave system that it is very unlikely to find another cave of this length on earth.
Jewel Cave	South Dakota, U.S.A.	335.564 m [2021]	was the third longest cave for a few decades, after new discoveries of well over 100 kilometres(!) it was the second longest. But it has nevertheless since been pushed back into third place by an underwater cave.
Optymistychna	Ukraine	257.000 m [2021]	was for a long time the second longest cave in the world, and is now in sixth place, but it is still the longest gypsum cave of the world.
Kazumura Cave	Hawai'i, U.S.A.	65.500 m [2021]	on the eastern flank of Kilauea volcano is the longest and deepest lava tube in the world. It is 65 km long and has a height difference of 1.1 km. Strange detail: the cave is never deeper than 20 m below the surface! It is 49th on the list of the world's longest caves [2021].
Painted Cave	Santa Cruz Island, California, U.S.A.	402m	is the longest sea cave of the world, with a length of 402 m.
Sistema Sac Actun	Quintana Roo, Mexiko.	371.958 m [2021]	Is the longest underwater cave in the world. As two underwater caves were recently connected (Nohoch Nah Chich, Aktun Hu), the newly created system has overtaken the previous number 1.
Sistema Ox Bel Ha	Quintana Roo, Mexico.	271.026 m [2021]	Is the second-longest underwater cave in the world.