River
Hvítá
185 km from source to mouth · Iceland.
IcelandFlows into Ölfusá2nd longest in Iceland
In numbers
Length
185km
Average flow
100m³/s
Basin
1,644km²
Drop
590m
from 600 m to 10 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
185 km of river and 6 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmHvítárvatnat 600 m
- 45 kmHvítárvatn29 km²
- 50 kmJökulfall á Kilitributary
- 95 kmGullfoss
- 141 kmBrúarátributary
- 169 kmHestvatn6.1 km²
- 183 kmÁlftavatn (lanaw sa Islandya, Suðurland, lat 64,02, long -20,98)2.5 km²
- 185 kmÖlfusáat 10 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
Left headwater of Ölfusá in Southern Iceland
At the mouth it carries 100 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 25 seconds. It drops from 600 m to 10 m, 3.2 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 1,644 km², about the size of GP. 1,787 people live in it. Highest water: April; lowest: from December to February and July. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- SelfossLargest city on its banks · 9,000 people
- Reykjavík Domestic Airport (RKV)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 51 km from the cityCar hire at RKV airport (Reykjavík)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- Kayak and canoe3 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From July to AugustThe best months to visit
Hvítá, month by month
Highest water: April
Lowest water: from December to February and July. Best months to visit: from July to August.
From about 93 m³/s in the lowest month to 510 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
Hvítá: the basin in numbers
4,533 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 1,787people live in the basin
- 0/km²people per km²
- 524maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,234mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 1.8°Caverage air temperature
- 1.6%covered by lakes
- 15%glaciers
- 2%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 15% 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
Hvítá: what you find on the way
- 2WaterfallsGullfoss, Gullfoss Falls
- 2RapidsStekkjarflúðw, Suðurkotsflúðir
- 1Canoe put-ins
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.6 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Hvítá 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.
1waterfall on the riverCascadyas
3lakes on its wayLakeyas
6mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Waterfalls (1)
On the river, by Cascadyas
- Gullfosskm 7732m
Cascadyas is coming soonOpen Cascadyas ↗
Lakes and reservoirs (3)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Hvítárvatnkm 36 · 84 m deep29km²
- Hestvatnkm 1386.1km²
- Álftavatn (lanaw sa Islandya, Suðurland, lat 64,02, long -20,98)km 1492.5km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (6)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Bláfell7.6 km away1,204m
- Geldingafell5.1 km away
- Safnalda14 km away
- Vegghamar8.9 km away
- Lausamannsalda8.2 km away
- Hestabrekkur6.9 km away
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
Hvítá in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
ÖlfusáIceland25 km420 m³/sTributaries (2)
Also: Brúará, Jökulfall á Kili
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q410410) · 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 | Cascadyas, Lakeyas, 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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