River
Gan River
758 km from source to mouth · China.
ChinaFlows into Poyang Lake
In numbers
Length
758km
Average flow
1,700m³/s
Basin
81,600km²
Drop
273m
from 281 m to 8 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
758 km of river and 11 stops on the way: 4 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 281 m
- 68 kmShangyoujiang reservoir19 km²
- 151 kmGanzhou1,977,253 people
- 241 kmWan'an Reservoir68 km²
- 348 kmBeijing-Kowloon Railway Ji'an Ganjiang Bridge
- 355 kmJi’an538,699 people
- 490 kmYuanshui Rivertributary
- 525 kmJianguang61,469 people
- 584 kmChaoyang Bridge
- 588 kmNanchang2,357,839 people
- 590 kmBayi Bridge
- 728 kmPoyang Lake2,398 km²
- 758 kmPoyang Lakeat 8 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Jiangxi, China
At the mouth it carries 1,667 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 1.5 seconds. It drops from 281 m to 8 m, 0.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 81,600 km², about the size of AE. 41.5 million people live in it. Highest water: June; lowest: from November to February. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (10% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- NanchangLargest city on its banks · 2,357,839 people
- Nanchang Changbei International Airport (KHN)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 21 km from the city
- On the water26 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From October to NovemberThe best months to visit
Gan River, month by month
Highest water: June
Lowest water: from November to February. Best months to visit: from October to November.
From about 2,200 m³/s in the lowest month to 13,200 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
Gan River: the basin in numbers
162,424 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 41.5millionpeople live in the basin
- 265/km²people per km²
- 252maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,575mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 17.7°Caverage air temperature
- 8%protected areas
- 2.4%covered by lakes
- 19km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 54% Forest
- 21% Cropland
- 9% Pasture
- 12% 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
Gan River: what you find on the way
- 4Weirs
- 12Locks
- 1Waterfalls
- 1Boat ramps
- 16Ferry piers
- 9Marinas
- 2River beaches
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Gan 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.
3lakes on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (3)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Shangyoujiang reservoirkm 6819km²
- Wan'an Reservoirkm 24068km²
- Poyang Lakekm 724 · 25 m deep2,398km²
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
Gan River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (6)
Also: Yuanshui River, Suichuan River, Shushui, Zhang River, Jin River, Heshui
In the same basin
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1046685) · 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
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.



