River
Black Volta
1,352 km from source to mouth · Ghana, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.
Ghana, Ivory Coast and Burkina FasoFlows into Volta River2nd longest in Ghana
In numbers
Length
1,352km
Average flow
260m³/s
Basin
140,000km²
Drop
245m
from 320 m to 75 m
Countries
3
The journey
From source to mouth
1,352 km of river and 2 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 320 m
- 1,047 kmBui Dam
- 1,071 kmTaintributary
- 1,352 kmVolta Riverat 75 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Ghana
At the mouth it carries 263 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 9.5 seconds. It drops from 320 m to 75 m, 0.2 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 140,000 km², about the size of NP. 7.1 million people live in it. Highest water: September; lowest: from January to April. Its dams hold back little of its water (2.0% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- SalagaLargest city on its banks · 25,472 people
- Yakubu Tali International Airport (TML)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 118 km from the cityCar hire at ACC airport (Accra)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water10 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From December to JanuaryThe best months to visit
Black Volta, month by month
Highest water: September
Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from December to January.
From about 130 m³/s in the lowest month to 1,100 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
Black Volta: the basin in numbers
154,023 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 7.1millionpeople live in the basin
- 46/km²people per km²
- 291maverage altitude of the basin
- 896mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 27.6°Caverage air temperature
- 8%protected areas
- 0.1%covered by lakes
- 0.3km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 20% Forest
- 16% Cropland
- 30% Pasture
- 1% Towns and cities
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
Black Volta: what you find on the way
- 10Ferry piers
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
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.
Photos
Black Volta in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Volta RiverGhana1,500 km1,300 m³/sTributaries (2)
Also: Tain, Laboni
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Ghana640 km250 m³/s0 km awayOti RiverGhana900 km430 m³/s137 km awayRed VoltaGhana313 km23 m³/s218 km awayKawa
Togo72 km46 m³/s239 km awayMono River
Benin467 km54 m³/s408 km awayOuémé RiverBenin480 km170 m³/s455 km awaySingouBurkina Faso311 km54 m³/s355 km awayKomoé RiverIvory Coast900 km430 m³/s490 km awayWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1256528) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Course, profile, basin | RiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed from the source to the mouth given by Wikidata |
| Flow | WaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate along the river | WorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Towns, bridges, dams | Wikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0 |
| Along the river | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every source and licence is on the data sources page.
The family
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