River
Sharda River
350 km from source to mouth · India and Nepal.
India and NepalFlows into Ghaghara River
In numbers
Length
350km
Average flow
2,300m³/s
Basin
18,140km²
Drop
3,613m
from 3,722 m to 109 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
350 km of river and 10 stops on the way: 4 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 3,722 m
- 45 kmDārchulā18,317 people
- 45 kmDhārchula7,331 people
- 60 kmGori Gangatributary
- 94 kmSarjutributary
- 139 kmTanakpur16,905 people
- 146 kmBanbasa7,138 people
- 151 kmDodhara Chandani Bridge
- 257 kmSharda Barrage
- 304 kmBaghār Tāl0.6 km²
- 336 kmSarayutributary
- 350 kmGhaghara Riverat 109 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in India and Nepal
At the mouth it carries 2,261 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 1.1 seconds. It drops from 3,722 m to 109 m, 10 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 18,140 km², about the size of FJ. 11.6 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from January to February and from April to May. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- DārchulāLargest city on its banks · 18,317 people
- Pantnagar Airport (PGH)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 137 km from the cityCar hire at DEL airport (New Delhi)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From November to MarchThe best months to visit
Sharda River, month by month
Highest water: from August to September
Lowest water: from January to February and from April to May. Best months to visit: from November to March.
From about 370 m³/s in the lowest month to 7,200 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
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The basin
Sharda River: the basin in numbers
80,409 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 11.6millionpeople live in the basin
- 145/km²people per km²
- 2,438maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,173mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 12.4°Caverage air temperature
- 16%protected areas
- 0.1%covered by lakes
- 4%glaciers
- 13%permafrost
- 0.4km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 39% Forest
- 15% Cropland
- 6% Pasture
- 5% Towns and cities
- 4% Ice
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
Sharda River: what you find on the way
- 43Weirs
- 1Waterfalls
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Sharda 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.
1lake on its wayLakeyas
1mountain at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Baghār Tālkm 4680.6km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (1)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Om Parvat7.0 km away6,191m
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
Sharda River in pictures




Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Ghaghara RiverTributaries (4)
Also: Sarayu, Gori Ganga, Sarju, Chamaliya
In the same basin
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q2095324) · 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, 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.