River
Ivindo River
500 km from source to mouth · Gabon.
GabonFlows into Ogooué River3rd longest in Gabon
In numbers
Length
500km
Average flow
780m³/s
Basin
59,000km²
Drop
356m
from 539 m to 183 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
500 km of river and 7 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 539 m
- 185 kmDjouatributary
- 287 kmDjadiétributary
- 318 kmMakokou24,823 people
- 323 kmLiboumbatributary
- 381 kmKongou Falls
- 382 kmchutes de Kongué
- 419 kmChutes de Mingouli
- 500 kmOgooué Riverat 183 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Gabon
At the mouth it carries 778 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 3.2 seconds. It drops from 539 m to 183 m, 0.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 59,000 km², about the size of TG. 156,000 people live in it. Highest water: November; lowest: February and from July to September. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- MakokouLargest city on its banks · 24,823 people
- Makokou Airport (MKU)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 3 km from the cityCar hire at LBV airport (Libreville)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water3 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe1 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- January and from June to AugustThe best months to visit
Ivindo River, month by month
Highest water: November
Lowest water: February and from July to September. Best months to visit: January and from June to August.
From about 640 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
Ivindo River: the basin in numbers
63,201 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 156,000people live in the basin
- 2/km²people per km²
- 540maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,617mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 23.7°Caverage air temperature
- 16%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 94% Forest
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
Ivindo River: what you find on the way
- 3WaterfallsChutes de Kongou, Chutes de Mingouli, Chutes de Tsengue-Lélédi
- 1RapidsRapides de Loa-Loa
- 3Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Ivindo 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.
3waterfalls on the riverCascadyas
Waterfalls (3)
On the river, by Cascadyas
- Kongou Fallskm 331
- chutes de Konguékm 332
- Chutes de Mingoulikm 364
Cascadyas is coming soonOpen Cascadyas ↗
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.
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Ogooué RiverTributaries (4)
Also: Aïna River, Djoua, Liboumba, Djadié
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1650057) · 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 — 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.