River
Verdon
166 km from source to mouth · France.
FranceFlows into Durance
In numbers
Length
166km
Average flow
27m³/s
Basin
2,294km²
Drop
876m
from 1,125 m to 249 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
166 km of river and 6 stops on the way: 5 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmTête de la Sestrièreat 1,125 m
- 5 kmBarcelonnette3,487 people
- 39 kmLac de Serre-Ponçon18 km²
- 101 kmSisteron7,605 people
- 122 kmLes Mées3,126 people
- 137 kmOraison4,399 people
- 140 kmVilleneuve3,309 people
- 166 kmDuranceat 249 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in France
At the mouth it carries 27 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 92 seconds. It drops from 1,125 m to 249 m, 5.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 2,294 km², about the size of KM. 292,000 people live in it. Highest water: from November to January. It is heavily dammed: reservoirs can hold 52% of a year's flow.
Where to start
- SisteronLargest city on its banks · 7,605 people
- Avignon Caumont airport (AVN)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 89 km from the cityCar hire at MRS airport (Marignane, Bouches-du-Rhône)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water14 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From June to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Verdon, month by month
Highest water: from November to January
Best months to visit: from June to September.
From about 31 m³/s in the lowest month to 270 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
Verdon: the basin in numbers
11,625 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 292,000people live in the basin
- 25/km²people per km²
- 1,306maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,019mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 7.1°Caverage air temperature
- 38%protected areas
- 0.4%covered by lakes
- 1%permafrost
- 2.3km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 54% Forest
- 11% Cropland
- 21% Pasture
- 1% 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
Verdon: what you find on the way
- 29Weirs
- 16Locks
- 33WaterfallsCascade des Pasquiers, Cascade des Andrieux, Cascade de Badieux and 30 more
- 9Boat ramps
- 2Marinas
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.8 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Verdon 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
26mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Lac de Serre-Ponçonkm 40 · 90 m deep18km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (26)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Mont Pelat14 km away · prominence 764 m3,051m
- Tête de l'Estrop5.1 km away · prominence 717 m2,961m
- Cimet13 km away · prominence 342 m3,020m
- Grande Séolane1.7 km away · prominence 388 m2,911m
- Trois-Évêchés3.9 km away2,818m
- Le Grand Cheval de Bois7.6 km away · prominence 453 m2,838m
- Barre Noire12 km away2,909m
- Le Chapeau du Gendarme9.5 km away2,682m
18 more on PeakyasOpen Peakyas ↗
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
Verdon in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
DuranceFrance324 km180 m³/sTributaries (5)
Also: Artuby, Colostre, Jabron, Issole, Lance
SwitzerlandNearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q255784) · 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?
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