[1] It runs 54 km and 9 locks 38.50m long and 5.20m wide down to the Belgian border at Jeumont.

From the border the river is canalised in two distinct sections over a distance of 88 km with 17 locks.

The Haute-Sambre is 39 km long and includes 10 locks of the same dimensions as in France, down to the industrial town of Charleroi.

The rest of the Belgian Sambre was upgraded to European Class IV dimensions (1350-tonne barges) in the immediate post-World War II period.

The navigable waterway is managed in France by Voies Navigables de France and in Belgium by the Service Public Wallon - Direction générale opérationnelle de la Mobilité et des Voies hydrauliques (Operational Directorate of Mobility and Inland Waterways)[2] The Sambre flows through the following departments of France, provinces of Belgium and towns: The 19th-century theory that the Sambre was the location of Julius Caesar's battle against a Belgic confederation (57 BC), was discarded a long time ago,[7] but is still repeated.