River
Clain
144 km from source to mouth · France.
FranceFlows into Vienne
In numbers
Length
144km
Average flow
20m³/s
Basin
2,965km²
Drop
109m
from 159 m to 50 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
144 km of river and 11 stops on the way: 11 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmHiesseat 159 m
- 0 kmSaint-Junien11,553 people
- 16 kmChabanais1,889 people
- 21 kmExideuil-sur-Vienne1,055 people
- 39 kmConfolens3,104 people
- 54 kmAvailles-Limouzine1,399 people
- 92 kmLussac-les-Châteaux2,711 people
- 114 kmChauvigny7,526 people
- 120 kmBonnes1,573 people
- 130 kmBonneuil-Matours1,927 people
- 135 kmVouneuil-sur-Vienne1,971 people
- 142 kmCenon-sur-Vienne1,835 people
- 144 kmVienneat 50 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in France
At the mouth it carries 20 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 123 seconds. It drops from 159 m to 50 m, 0.8 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 2,965 km², about the size of LU. 384,000 people live in it. Highest water: from December to February. Its dams hold back little of its water (6.8% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- Saint-JunienLargest city on its banks · 11,553 people
- Limoges Airport (LIG)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 22 km from the cityCar hire at LIG airport (Limoges/Bellegarde)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water10 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Clain, month by month
Highest water: from December to February
Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 20 m³/s in the lowest month to 120 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
Clain: the basin in numbers
6,242 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 384,000people live in the basin
- 62/km²people per km²
- 354maverage altitude of the basin
- 955mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 10.7°Caverage air temperature
- 23%protected areas
- 0.3%covered by lakes
- 0.1km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 32% Forest
- 15% Cropland
- 27% Pasture
- 2% 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
Clain: what you find on the way
- 34WeirsGué de la Biche and 33 more
- 9Boat rampsLe Moulin de Gady and 8 more
- 1River beachesPlage de Bonneuil-Matours
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.7 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
Clain in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
VienneFrance372 km210 m³/sTributaries (9)
Also: Clouère, Vonne, Boivre, Dive du Sud, the Auxances, Miosson, Palu, Palais, Payroux
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q498302) · 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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