River
Luan River
877 km from source to mouth · China.
ChinaFlows into Bohai Sea
In numbers
Length
877km
Average flow
140m³/s
Basin
44,900km²
Drop
1,511m
from 1,510 m to -1 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
877 km of river and 4 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 1,510 m
- 641 kmPanjiakou Shuiku18 km²
- 654 kmSonglingcun52,277 people
- 669 kmDaheitingreservoaren19 km²
- 763 kmLuanhe Steel Bridge
- 877 kmBohai Seaat -1 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in the People's Republic of China
At the mouth it carries 140 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 18 seconds. It drops from 1,510 m to -1 m, 1.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 44,900 km², about the size of EE. 5.2 million people live in it. Highest water: August; lowest: from December to March. It is heavily dammed: reservoirs can hold 128% of a year's flow.
Where to start
- SonglingcunLargest city on its banks · 52,277 people
- Chengde Puning Airport (CDE)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 94 km from the city
- From May to June and SeptemberThe best months to visit
Luan River, month by month
Highest water: August
Lowest water: from December to March. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from December to February. Best months to visit: from May to June and September.
From about 14 m³/s in the lowest month to 400 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
Luan River: the basin in numbers
45,714 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 5.2millionpeople live in the basin
- 113/km²people per km²
- 907maverage altitude of the basin
- 521mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 5.2°Caverage air temperature
- 8%protected areas
- 0.2%covered by lakes
- 4.3km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 50% Forest
- 17% Cropland
- 70% Pasture
- 7% 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
Luan River: what you find on the way
- 4Weirs
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.2 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Luan 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.
2lakes on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (2)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Panjiakou Shuikukm 62118km²
- Daheitingreservoarenkm 64819km²
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
Luan River in pictures


Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1193523) · 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.