River
Ülbi River
100 km from source to mouth · Kazakhstan.
KazakhstanFlows into Irtysh
In numbers
Length
100km
Average flow
100m³/s
Basin
4,990km²
Drop
364m
from 643 m to 279 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
100 km of river and 3 stops on the way: 2 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 643 m
- 2 kmGromotukhatributary
- 2 kmUl’ba4,759 people
- 97 kmUst-Kamenogorsk319,067 people
- 100 kmIrtyshat 279 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Kazakhstan
At the mouth it carries 100 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 25 seconds. It drops from 643 m to 279 m, 3.6 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 4,990 km², about the size of TT. 58,000 people live in it. Highest water: from April to June; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- Ust-KamenogorskLargest city on its banks · 319,067 people
- Oskemen International Airport (UKK)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 11 km from the cityCar hire at NQZ airport (Astana)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water1 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From June to AugustThe best months to visit
Ülbi River, month by month
Highest water: from April to June
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 4.3 m³/s in the lowest month to 160 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
Ülbi River: the basin in numbers
5,100 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 58,000people live in the basin
- 11/km²people per km²
- 950maverage altitude of the basin
- 583mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 0.9°Caverage air temperature
- 1%protected areas
- 0.2%covered by lakes
- 8%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 33% Forest
- 2% Cropland
- 23% Pasture
- 2% 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
Ülbi River: what you find on the way
- 1Waterfalls
- 1Ferry piers
- 1River beaches
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.6 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
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
Ülbi River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Irtysh
Russia4,248 km3,000 m³/sTributaries (2)
Also: Gromotukha, Tynyq
ChinaWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1118139) · 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 |
Every source and licence is on the data sources page.
The family
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