River
Ket
1,621 km from source to mouth · Russia.
RussiaFlows into Ob
In numbers
Length
1,621km
Average flow
560m³/s
Basin
94,200km²
Drop
215m
from 259 m to 44 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
1,621 km of river and 3 stops on the way: 2 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSayan Mountainsat 259 m
- 1,264 kmKolpashevo27,876 people
- 1,278 kmTogur8,442 people
- 1,442 kmPayduginatributary
- 1,621 kmObat 44 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Siberia, tributary of the Ob
At the mouth it carries 560 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 4.5 seconds. It drops from 259 m to 44 m, 0.1 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 94,200 km², about the size of HU. 8.6 million people live in it. Highest water: from June to August; lowest: from January to April. Its dams hold back little of its water (6.9% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- KolpashevoLargest city on its banks · 27,876 people
- On the water22 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From June to AugustThe best months to visit
Ket, month by month
Highest water: from June to August
Lowest water: from January to April. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from November to March. Best months to visit: from June to August.
From about 1,100 m³/s in the lowest month to 10,700 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
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The basin
Ket: the basin in numbers
514,033 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 8.6millionpeople live in the basin
- 17/km²people per km²
- 542maverage altitude of the basin
- 482mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 0.2°Caverage air temperature
- 12%protected areas
- 0.5%covered by lakes
- 10%permafrost
- 8.8km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 57% Forest
- 16% Cropland
- 12% Pasture
- 1% 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
Ket: what you find on the way
- 20Ferry piers
- 2Marinas
- 4River beaches
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.8 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.
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
ObTributaries (75)
Also: Orlovka, Yoltyreva, Lisitsa, Mendel, Elovaya, Paydugina, Chachamga, Sochur, Kelma, Malaya Ket, Olyonka, Pikovka, Togolika, Kyzurova, Suyga, Chagiseyka, Bolshaya Logayka, Bolshaya Urashnaya, Bushuy, Gromyshevka, Gryaznovka, Ershovka, Zhorob, Kassayga
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q724465) · 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
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.