River
Koyukuk River
805 km from source to mouth · United States.
United StatesFlows into Yukon River
In numbers
Length
805km
Average flow
400m³/s
Basin
82,880km²
Drop
798m
from 667 m to -131 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
805 km of river and 18 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmNorth Fork Koyukuk Riverat 667 m
- 150 kmMiddle Fork Koyukuk Rivertributary
- 152 kmNorth Fork Koyukuk Rivertributary
- 175 kmWild Rivertributary
- 181 kmJohn Rivertributary
- 229 kmSouth Fork Koyukuk Rivertributary
- 266 kmAlatna Rivertributary
- 276 kmTasiswane Lake0.4 km²
- 291 kmKanuti Rivertributary
- 367 kmKlalbaimunket Lake1.0 km²
- 466 kmHogatza Rivertributary
- 534 kmHuntington Slough5.0 km²
- 546 kmHuslia Rivertributary
- 553 kmMingogut Lake0.6 km²
- 569 kmFish Lake0.5 km²
- 650 kmTiskeet Lake3.0 km²
- 668 kmKateel Rivertributary
- 685 kmGisasa Rivertributary
- 754 kmKoyukuk98 people
- 805 kmYukon Riverat -131 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Alaska
At the mouth it carries 404 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 6.2 seconds. It drops from 667 m to -131 m, 1.0 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 82,880 km², about the size of AE. Highest water, with the snowmelt: from May to June; lowest: from January to April. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- KoyukukLargest city on its banks · 98 people
- Edward G. Pitka Sr Airport (GAL)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 40 km from the cityCar hire at ANC airport (Anchorage)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From June to JulyThe best months to visit
Koyukuk River, month by month
Highest water: from May to June
Lowest water: from January to April. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from October to April. Melting snow makes up much of its water. Best months to visit: from June to July.
From about 400 m³/s in the lowest month to 1,600 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
Koyukuk River: the basin in numbers
80,406 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 879people live in the basin
- 448maverage altitude of the basin
- 332mmof rain a year (basin average)
- -8.0°Caverage air temperature
- 56%protected areas
- 0.9%covered by lakes
- 74%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 11% 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.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Koyukuk 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.
6lakes on its wayLakeyas
1mountain at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (6)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Tasiswane Lakekm 2700.4km²
- Klalbaimunket Lakekm 3591.0km²
- Huntington Sloughkm 5235.0km²
- Mingogut Lakekm 5410.6km²
- Fish Lakekm 5570.5km²
- Tiskeet Lakekm 6363.0km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (1)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Pope Creek Dome13 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
Koyukuk River in pictures




Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Yukon RiverTributaries (14)
Also: Alatna River, John River, Kanuti River, Hogatza River, North Fork Koyukuk River, Middle Fork Koyukuk River, Wild River, South Fork Koyukuk River, Huslia River, Gisasa River, Kateel River, Indian River, Dulbi River, Henshaw Creek
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1546553) · 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, 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.