River
Ma River
512 km from source to mouth · Vietnam and Laos.
Vietnam and LaosFlows into Gulf of Tonkin5th longest in Vietnam
In numbers
Length
512km
Average flow
640m³/s
Basin
28,400km²
Drop
729m
from 729 m to 0 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
512 km of river and 1 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmĐiện Biênat 729 m
- 481 kmNam Sam Rivertributary
- 512 kmGulf of Tonkinat 0 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Laos and Vietnam
At the mouth it carries 639 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 3.9 seconds. It drops from 729 m to 0 m, 1.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 28,400 km², about the size of SB. 2.8 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- Sầm SơnLargest city on its banks · 129,801 people
- Vinh Airport (VII)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 113 km from the cityCar hire in Nakhon PhanomDiscover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water7 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From November to MarchThe best months to visit
Ma River, month by month
Highest water: from August to September
Lowest water: from December to March. Best months to visit: from November to March.
From about 87 m³/s in the lowest month to 1,700 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
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
Ma River: the basin in numbers
29,596 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 2.8millionpeople live in the basin
- 95/km²people per km²
- 751maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,531mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 20.8°Caverage air temperature
- 13%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 7% Forest
- 10% Cropland
- 1% 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
Ma River: what you find on the way
- 1Waterfalls
- 1Boat ramps
- 6Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.1 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Ma 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.
1mountain at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (1)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Phou Sam Sao2.3 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.
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (1)
Also: Nam Sam River
ThailandWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q508468) · 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 | 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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