River
Drôme
111 km from source to mouth · France.
FranceFlows into Rhône
In numbers
Length
111km
Average flow
20m³/s
Basin
1,640km²
Drop
600m
from 688 m to 88 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
111 km of river and 12 stops on the way: 10 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 688 m
- 11 kmViaduc du Claps
- 34 kmDie4,924 people
- 75 kmAouste-sur-Sye2,145 people
- 79 kmCrest8,517 people
- 83 kmDrôme Viaduct
- 83 kmEurre1,087 people
- 88 kmGrane1,693 people
- 93 kmAllex2,245 people
- 100 kmLivron-sur-Drôme8,440 people
- 101 kmLoriol-sur-Drôme5,803 people
- 106 kmLa Voulte-sur-Rhône5,108 people
- 110 kmLe Pouzin2,849 people
- 111 kmRhôneat 88 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 125 seconds. It drops from 688 m to 88 m, 5.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 1,640 km², about the size of GP. 8.7 million people live in it. Highest water: from November to January. Its dams hold back little of its water (7.0% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- CrestLargest city on its banks · 8,517 people
- Grenoble Alpes Isère Airport (GNB)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 75 km from the cityCar hire at GNB airport (Grenoble)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water7 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe1 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Drôme, month by month
Highest water: from November to January
Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 770 m³/s in the lowest month to 1,800 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
Drôme: the basin in numbers
68,984 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 8.7millionpeople live in the basin
- 129/km²people per km²
- 787maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,068mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 8.1°Caverage air temperature
- 18%protected areas
- 1.1%covered by lakes
- 1%glaciers
- 2%permafrost
- 3.1km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 45% Forest
- 19% Cropland
- 22% Pasture
- 6% Towns and cities
- 1% Ice
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
Drôme: what you find on the way
- 12WeirsSeuil des Pues, Seuil de la Drôme, Chemin de la Plaine and 9 more
- 1Locks
- 7Waterfalls
- 1Rapids
- 3Boat rampsPoint d'embarquement et de débarquement isolé - Parcours de canöé-kayak, Portage Kayak Barrage du Pouzin
- 1MarinasHalte fluviale - port
- 1River beachesCrest
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Drôme 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.
32mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (32)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Montagne Durbonas14 km away2,086m
- Sommet de Laup2.7 km away1,543m
- Beaumont15 km away1,514m
- Sommet d'Aiguillon7.6 km away1,406m
- Roc de Beauvent0.9 km away1,379m
- Luzet8.1 km away1,377m
- Roc de Longue-Dent14 km away1,337m
- Pierre Blanche11 km away1,336m
24 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
Drôme in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
RhôneTributaries (7)
Also: Sye, Gervanne, Bez, Roanne, Grenette, Sure, Maravel
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q743296) · 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?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.



