River
Tuul River
704 km from source to mouth · Mongolia.
MongoliaFlows into Orkhon River4th longest in Mongolia
In numbers
Length
704km
Average flow
37m³/s
Basin
49,840km²
Drop
999m
from 1,781 m to 782 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
704 km of river and 5 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmKhentii Mountainsat 1,781 m
- 164 kmMarshall Bridge
- 167 kmZaisan Bridge
- 169 kmUlan Bator844,818 people
- 170 kmYarmag Bridge
- 178 kmSonsgolon Bridge
- 704 kmOrkhon Riverat 782 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Mongolia
At the mouth it carries 37 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 67 seconds. It drops from 1,781 m to 782 m, 1.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 49,840 km², about the size of SK. 1.0 million people live in it. Highest water: August; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- Ulan BatorLargest city on its banks · 844,818 people
- Ulaanbaatar Chinggis Khaan International Airport (UBN)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 29 km from the city
- From June to AugustThe best months to visit
Tuul River, month by month
Highest water: August
Lowest water: from December to March. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from November to March. Best months to visit: from June to August.
From about 2.7 m³/s in the lowest month to 120 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
Tuul River: the basin in numbers
49,995 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 1.0millionpeople live in the basin
- 20/km²people per km²
- 1,375maverage altitude of the basin
- 258mmof rain a year (basin average)
- -0.5°Caverage air temperature
- 12%protected areas
- 8%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 5% Forest
- 2% Cropland
- 79% 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.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Tuul 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.
2mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (2)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Hiidiin Sarĭdag14 km away
- Alag Baavgayt Uul11 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
Tuul River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Orkhon RiverIn the same basin
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q643058) · 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 |
| 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.



