River
Chilik River
245 km from source to mouth · Kazakhstan.
KazakhstanFlows into Ili River
In numbers
Length
245km
Average flow
32m³/s
Basin
4,980km²
Drop
1,399m
from 1,899 m to 500 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
245 km of river and 2 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 1,899 m
- 62 kmKegen9,993 people
- 235 kmWooden Lake0.5 km²
- 245 kmIli Riverat 500 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Kazakhstan
At the mouth it carries 32 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 78 seconds. It drops from 1,899 m to 500 m, 5.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 4,980 km², about the size of TT. 60,000 people live in it. Highest water: from April to May; lowest: from November to February. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- KegenLargest city on its banks · 9,993 people
- Karakol International Airport (IKG)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 87 km from the cityCar hire at ALA airport (Almaty)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Chilik River, month by month
Highest water: from April to May
Lowest water: from November to February. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from December to February. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 2.7 m³/s in the lowest month to 140 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
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The basin
Chilik River: the basin in numbers
8,219 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 60,000people live in the basin
- 7/km²people per km²
- 2,201maverage altitude of the basin
- 418mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 2.2°Caverage air temperature
- 0.1%covered by lakes
- 8%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 4% Forest
- 9% Cropland
- 57% 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
Chilik River: what you find on the way
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.7 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Chilik River 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.
1lake on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Wooden Lakekm 2320.5km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
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
Chilik River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Ili RiverKazakhstan1,439 km480 m³/sIn the same basin
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Kazakhstan427 km35 m³/s0 km awayAksu RiverKazakhstan316 km11 m³/s285 km awayLepsy RiverKazakhstan417 km19 m³/s290 km awayAyaguz RiverKazakhstan492 km8.8 m³/s305 km awayKaratal RiverKazakhstan390 km67 m³/s336 km awayChong-Kemin River
Kyrgyzstan116 km22 m³/s316 km awayYarkand River
China858 km170 m³/s403 km awayHotan RiverChina1,035 km140 m³/s403 km awayWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q4845939) · 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 | Lakeyas — 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
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