River
Mara River
395 km from source to mouth · Tanzania and Kenya.
Tanzania and KenyaFlows into Lake Victoria7th longest in Tanzania
In numbers
Length
395km
Average flow
18m³/s
Basin
13,504km²
Drop
1,368m
from 2,502 m to 1,134 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
395 km of river and 2 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 2,502 m
- 74 kmMulot3,149 people
- 385 kmKirumi Bridge
- 395 kmLake Victoriaat 1,134 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Kenya and Tanzania
At the mouth it carries 18 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 139 seconds. It drops from 2,502 m to 1,134 m, 3.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 13,504 km², about the size of BS. 978,000 people live in it. Highest water: from April to May; lowest: from August to October. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- MulotLargest city on its banks · 3,149 people
- Mara Serena Lodge Airstrip (MRE)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 69 km from the cityCar hire at NBO airport (Nairobi)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From June to OctoberThe best months to visit
Mara River, month by month
Highest water: from April to May
Lowest water: from August to October. Best months to visit: from June to October.
From about 11 m³/s in the lowest month to 26 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
Mara River: the basin in numbers
13,606 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 978,000people live in the basin
- 72/km²people per km²
- 1,726maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,056mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 18.8°Caverage air temperature
- 37%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 30% Forest
- 9% Cropland
- 35% Pasture
- 6% 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.
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
Mara River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
In the same basin
Egypt6,650 km2,800 m³/sWhite Nile
Sudan2,620 km880 m³/sBlue NileSudan1,783 km1,500 m³/sKagera River
Uganda400 km350 m³/sSobat River
South Sudan306 km410 m³/sAtbarah RiverSudan1,120 km370 m³/sBahr el Ghazal RiverSouth Sudan716 km2.0 m³/sTekezé RiverSudan608 km140 m³/sValley of the QueensEgypt4,302 km2,600 m³/sBaro River
Ethiopia306 km240 m³/sNearby
Rivers nearby
Kenya334 km200 m³/s175 km awayKagera RiverUganda400 km350 m³/s248 km awayKatonga RiverUganda177 km100 m³/s301 km awayRurubu RiverTanzania300 km100 m³/s364 km awayNyabarongo River
Rwanda300 km110 m³/s407 km awayAkanyaru RiverRwanda212 km110 m³/s432 km awaySemliki RiverUganda230 km240 m³/s492 km awayMubarazi River
Burundi67 km28 m³/s479 km awayWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q530479) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Course, profile, basin | RiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed along the river network from the point 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
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