River
Zavkhan River
808 km from source to mouth · Mongolia.
MongoliaFlows into Airag Lake2nd longest in Mongolia
In numbers
Length
808km
Average flow
60m³/s
Basin
150,000km²
Drop
1,603m
from 2,632 m to 1,029 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
808 km of river and 2 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 2,632 m
- 657 kmKhar Lake575 km²
- 752 kmAirag Lake126 km²
- 808 kmAirag Lakeat 1,029 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 60 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 42 seconds. It drops from 2,632 m to 1,029 m, 2.0 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 150,000 km², about the size of BD. 178,000 people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- SharbulagA town on its banks
- Khovd Airport (HVD)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 145 km from the city
- From June to AugustThe best months to visit
Zavkhan River, month by month
Highest water: from August to September
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 35 m³/s in the lowest month to 55 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
Zavkhan River: the basin in numbers
128,402 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 178,000people live in the basin
- 1/km²people per km²
- 2,098maverage altitude of the basin
- 160mmof rain a year (basin average)
- -2.7°Caverage air temperature
- 19%protected areas
- 2.4%covered by lakes
- 47%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 83% 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
Zavkhan River: what you find on the way
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Zavkhan 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.
2lakes on its wayLakeyas
1mountain at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (2)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Khar Lakekm 626 · 7 m deep575km²
- Airag Lakekm 716 · 10 m deep126km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (1)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Eleseteyn Nuruu12 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.
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (1)
Also: Yaruugiyn Gol
In the same basin
ChinaWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q2353197) · 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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