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River

Bahr Aouk River

650 km from source to mouth · Chad and Central African Republic.

ChadCentral African RepublicChad and Central African RepublicFlows into Chari River4th longest in Chad

Follow the riverMonth by month

SourceMouth
The river and every tributary in its basin, drawn from RiverATLAS (CC BY 4.0).

In numbers

Length

650km

Average flow

110m³/s

Basin

103,577km²

Drop

122m

from 488 m to 366 m

Countries

2

The journey

From source to mouth

650 km of river and 0 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.

488 m366 m
Sourceat 488 m0 km
Chari Riverat 366 m650 km
0200400650 km
  1. 0 kmSourceat 488 m
  2. 650 kmChari Riverat 366 m

Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.

River

At the mouth it carries 114 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 22 seconds. It drops from 488 m to 366 m, 0.2 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 103,577 km², about the size of IS. 866,000 people live in it. Highest water: September; lowest: from January to April. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.

Read more on Wikipedia

Where to start

  • SarhLargest city on its banks · 138,928 people
  • From November to JanuaryThe best months to visit

Bahr Aouk River, month by month

Highest water: September

Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from November to January.

45
25°0 mmJan
32
28°1 mmFeb
32
30°7 mmMar
37
30°32 mmApr
58
30°83 mmMay
100
28°130 mmJun
200
26°208 mmJul
290
25°227 mmAug
340
26°178 mmSep
290
27°67 mmOct
200
25°3 mmNov
100
24°0 mmDec
Water (estimated flow)Air (average) Rain (mm)Best months

From about 32 m³/s in the lowest month to 340 m³/s in the highest. An estimate: the monthly flow is modelled from the lowest and highest months of WaterGAP (RiverATLAS, 1971–2000) and the rain and snow along the river (WorldClim). Dams change the real rhythm. The chip is the average air temperature; below it, the month's rain.

Plan the trip

Plan the trip: boat trips, a bed by the river, a car

Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.

The basin

Bahr Aouk River: the basin in numbers

136,570 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.

Free-flowingDams upstream can hold only 0.0% of a year's flow: the river still keeps its natural rhythm.
  • 866,000people live in the basin
  • 6/km²people per km²
  • 524maverage altitude of the basin
  • 882mmof rain a year (basin average)
  • 26.5°Caverage air temperature
  • 32%protected areas

What covers the basin

  • 12% Forest
  • 3% Cropland
  • 31% Pasture

RiverATLAS (HydroATLAS v1.0, CC BY 4.0): land cover, people, protected areas, glaciers and dams over the whole basin upstream of the mouth.

Along the river

Bahr Aouk River: what you find on the way

  • 1Dams
  • 8Weirs

From OpenStreetMap, within 2.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.

From space

The source and the mouth, seen from orbit

Bahr Aouk River: satellite view of the source
The source14 km across
Bahr Aouk River: satellite view of the mouth
The mouth50 km across

Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0. The glowing line is the river as drawn by RiverATLAS.

Where these numbers come from

Name, length, placesWikidata (Q769856) · CC0
Course, profile, basinRiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed along the river network from the point given by Wikidata
FlowWaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Climate along the riverWorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Towns, bridges, damsWikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0
Along the river© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons

Every source and licence is on the data sources page.

The family

Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.

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