River
Blies
100 km from source to mouth · France and Germany.
France and GermanyFlows into Saar
In numbers
Length
100km
Average flow
19m³/s
Basin
1,960km²
Drop
72m
from 269 m to 197 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
100 km of river and 18 stops on the way: 9 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 269 m
- 0 kmSankt Wendel26,904 people
- 12 kmOttweiler14,255 people
- 18 kmHangard1,970 people
- 22 kmNeunkirchen49,843 people
- 30 kmBexbach17,793 people
- 39 kmBliesberger Hof Brücke
- 44 kmLambsbachtributary
- 47 kmErbachtributary
- 53 kmSchwarzbachtributary
- 53 kmWürzbachtributary
- 54 kmBlieskastel20,197 people
- 54 kmBlies Bridge Blieskastel
- 55 kmAlte Mühle
- 70 kmGersheim7,264 people
- 78 kmBliesbruck1,024 people
- 93 kmBliesbrücke
- 99 kmSarreguemines24,446 people
- 99 kmMandelbachtributary
- 100 kmSaarat 197 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 19 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 130 seconds. It drops from 269 m to 197 m, 0.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 1,960 km², about the size of MU. 438,000 people live in it. Highest water: from December to January. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- NeunkirchenLargest city on its banks · 49,843 people
- Saarbrücken Airport (SCN)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 15 km from the cityCar hire at HHN airport (Frankfurt am Main)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water8 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From June to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Blies, month by month
Highest water: from December to January
Best months to visit: from June to September.
From about 7.0 m³/s in the lowest month to 35 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
Blies: the basin in numbers
1,863 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 438,000people live in the basin
- 234/km²people per km²
- 334maverage altitude of the basin
- 746mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 8.6°Caverage air temperature
- 34%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 48% Forest
- 18% Cropland
- 10% Pasture
- 14% 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
Blies: what you find on the way
- 16Weirs
- 9LocksCanal des Houillères de la Sarre and 8 more
- 2Waterfalls
- 4Boat ramps
- 4MarinasYacht Club Hanweiler, Port de plaisance de Sarreguemines, Port de Sarreguemines-Steinbach and 1 more
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.4 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Blies in our other atlases
What our sister atlases know about the waterfalls on this river, the lakes it flows through, the beaches at its mouth, the mountains where it rises and the islands off its mouth.
114mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (114)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Dollberg11 km away695m
- Friedrichskopf14 km away707m
- Weiselberg14 km away570m
- Schaumberg4.9 km away569m
- Peterberg5.7 km away584m
- Füsselberg14 km away595m
- Kahlen-Berg10 km away564m
- Bosenberg12 km away485m
106 more on PeakyasOpen Peakyas ↗
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
Blies in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
SaarGermany246 km78 m³/sTributaries (10)
Also: Schwarzbach, Würzbach, Oster, Lambsbach, Erbach, Todbach, Gailbach, Mandelbach, Hetschenbach, Mutterbach
The Netherlands
SwitzerlandNearby
Rivers nearby
LuxembourgWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q585833) · 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 |
| Our other atlases | Peakyas — Wikidata · CC0; © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0; HydroLAKES · CC BY 4.0; NOAA OISST |
Every source and licence is on the data sources page.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?
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