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River

Tapoa River

260 km from source to mouth · Niger and Burkina Faso.

NigerBurkina FasoNiger and Burkina FasoFlows into Niger River3rd longest in Niger

Follow the riverMonth by month

SourceMouth
The river and every tributary in its basin, drawn from RiverATLAS (CC BY 4.0).

In numbers

Length

260km

Average flow

8.9m³/s

Basin

5,713km²

Drop

103m

from 280 m to 177 m

Countries

2

The journey

From source to mouth

260 km of river and 0 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.

280 m177 m
Sourceat 280 m0 km
Niger Riverat 177 m260 km
0100200260 km
  1. 0 kmSourceat 280 m
  2. 260 kmNiger Riverat 177 m

Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.

River in Burkina Faso and Niger

At the mouth it carries 8.9 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 280 seconds. It drops from 280 m to 177 m, 0.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 5,713 km², about the size of BN. 121,000 people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from January to April. Its dams hold back little of its water (2.0% of a year's flow).

Read more on Wikipedia

Where to start

Tapoa River, month by month

Highest water: from August to September

Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from December to January.

0.9
25°0 mmJan
0.9
28°1 mmFeb
0.9
31°4 mmMar
1.2
33°17 mmApr
3.2
32°55 mmMay
10
30°108 mmJun
24
28°168 mmJul
40
26°208 mmAug
40
27°136 mmSep
25
29°23 mmOct
9.2
28°1 mmNov
1.2
26°0 mmDec
Water (estimated flow)Air (average) Rain (mm)Best months

From about 0.9 m³/s in the lowest month to 40 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

Tapoa River: the basin in numbers

5,713 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.

Lightly regulatedReservoirs can hold 2.0% of a year's flow.
  • 121,000people live in the basin
  • 21/km²people per km²
  • 270maverage altitude of the basin
  • 741mmof rain a year (basin average)
  • 28.3°Caverage air temperature
  • 28%protected areas
  • 0.0km³held in reservoirs

What covers the basin

  • 16% Cropland
  • 20% 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

Tapoa River: what you find on the way

  • 5DamsBarrage de Tapoa and 4 more

From OpenStreetMap, within 1.7 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.

From space

The source and the mouth, seen from orbit

Tapoa River: satellite view of the source
The source14 km across
Tapoa River: satellite view of the mouth
The mouth10 km across

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

Tapoa River in pictures

Fishes Tapoa-Djerma MS 6555
Marco Schmidt · CC BY-SA 3.0
La rivière de la Tapoa
Tawaye · CC BY-SA 4.0

Where these numbers come from

Name, length, placesWikidata (Q2393701) · CC0
Course, profile, basinRiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed along the river network from the point given by Wikidata
FlowWaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Climate along the riverWorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Towns, bridges, damsWikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0
Along the river© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons

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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