River
Oti River
900 km from source to mouth · 4 countries.
Ghana, Togo, Benin and Burkina FasoFlows into Lake Volta3rd longest in Ghana
In numbers
Length
900km
Average flow
430m³/s
Basin
72,900km²
Drop
268m
from 343 m to 75 m
Countries
4
The journey
From source to mouth
900 km of river and 3 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 343 m
- 265 kmSingoutributary
- 460 kmMango37,748 people
- 798 kmKara Rivertributary
- 900 kmLake Voltaat 75 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in West-Central Africa
At the mouth it carries 434 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 5.8 seconds. It drops from 343 m to 75 m, 0.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 72,900 km², about the size of SL. 3.5 million people live in it. Highest water: September; lowest: from January to April. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (15% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- MangoLargest city on its banks · 37,748 people
- Yakubu Tali International Airport (TML)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 172 km from the cityCar hire at ACC airport (Accra)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From November to JanuaryThe best months to visit
Oti River, month by month
Highest water: September
Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from November to January.
From about 130 m³/s in the lowest month to 1,200 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
Oti River: the basin in numbers
69,600 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 3.5millionpeople live in the basin
- 50/km²people per km²
- 242maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,049mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 27.7°Caverage air temperature
- 23%protected areas
- 0.3%covered by lakes
- 2.0km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 28% Forest
- 22% Cropland
- 17% 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
Oti River: what you find on the way
- 5Weirs
- 2Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Oti 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.
5mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (5)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Temtoutamou14 km away469m
- Waratamou10 km away463m
- Kontenatanmbou9.0 km away447m
- Paratammou6.3 km away421m
- Dotaka13 km away405m
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
Oti River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q252472) · 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?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.


