Stream
Saguia el-Hamra
350 km from source to mouth · Western Sahara and Morocco.
Western Sahara and MoroccoFlows into Atlantic Ocean
In numbers
Length
350km
Average flow
60m³/s
Basin
65,000km²
Drop
386m
from 378 m to -8 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
350 km of river and 1 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 378 m
- 322 kmLaayoune196,331 people
- 350 kmAtlantic Oceanat -8 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Western Sahara
At the mouth it carries 60 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 42 seconds. It drops from 378 m to -8 m, 1.1 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 65,000 km², about the size of LT. 128,000 people live in it. Highest water: December; lowest: from May to August. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- LaayouneLargest city on its banks · 196,331 people
- Laayoune Hassan I International Airport (EUN)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 4 km from the cityCar hire at EUN airport (El Aaiún)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From January to MayThe best months to visit
Saguia el-Hamra, month by month
Highest water: December
Lowest water: from May to August. Best months to visit: from January to May.
From about 3.2 m³/s in the lowest month to 150 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
Saguia el-Hamra: the basin in numbers
69,516 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 128,000people live in the basin
- 2/km²people per km²
- 302maverage altitude of the basin
- 39mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 21.4°Caverage air temperature
- 94%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 2% Pasture
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
Saguia el-Hamra: what you find on the way
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Saguia el-Hamra 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
- Crab Dmeriyine6.3 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.
Photos
Saguia el-Hamra in pictures
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q4495328) · 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.
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Every summit in 3D: summit weather, the 0 °C line, huts and trails.Visit 
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islands
Every island from the sea up: size, sea temperature, ferries and 3D.Coming soonVisit 
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Every river from source to sea: the journey, the flow and the basin in numbers.You are here
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Every canyon cut to scale: depth to the floor, rim and floor temperatures, trails and viewpoints.Coming soonVisit