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River

Aksu River

316 km from source to mouth · Kazakhstan.

KazakhstanKazakhstanFlows into Lake Balkhash

Follow the riverMonth by month

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

In numbers

Length

316km

Average flow

11m³/s

Basin

5,040km²

Drop

1,746m

from 2,084 m to 338 m

Country

1

The journey

From source to mouth

316 km of river and 1 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.

2,084 m338 m
Sourceat 2,084 m0 km
Matay4,139 people213 km
Lake Balkhashat 338 m316 km
0100200316 km
  1. 0 kmSourceat 2,084 m
  2. 213 kmMatay4,139 people
  3. 316 kmLake Balkhashat 338 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 11 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 223 seconds. It drops from 2,084 m to 338 m, 5.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 5,040 km², about the size of TT. 16,000 people live in it. Highest water, with the snowmelt: from April to May; lowest: from January to March and September. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.

Read more on Wikipedia

Where to start

Aksu River, month by month

Highest water: from April to May

Lowest water: from January to March and September. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from December to February. Melting snow makes up much of its water. Best months to visit: from May to September.

0.6
-11°21 mmJan
0.6
-10°17 mmFeb
0.6
-1°23 mmMar
51
10°30 mmApr
46
16°32 mmMay
40
21°26 mmJun
6.4
24°23 mmJul
3.8
22°13 mmAug
3.4
16°16 mmSep
8.1
8°30 mmOct
6.4
-1°31 mmNov
4.6
-7°28 mmDec
Water (estimated flow)Air (average) Rain (mm)Best months

From about 0.6 m³/s in the lowest month to 51 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

Car hire at ALA airport (Almaty)Discover CarsSee 

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The basin

Aksu River: the basin in numbers

5,014 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.

Free-flowingDams upstream can hold only 0.0% of a year's flow: the river still keeps its natural rhythm.
  • 16,000people live in the basin
  • 3/km²people per km²
  • 1,210maverage altitude of the basin
  • 370mmof rain a year (basin average)
  • 3.8°Caverage air temperature
  • 2%protected areas
  • 0.1%covered by lakes
  • 12%permafrost

What covers the basin

  • 2% Forest
  • 9% Cropland
  • 61% 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

Aksu River: what you find on the way

  • 1Dams
  • 2Weirs

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

Aksu River: satellite view of the source
The source14 km across
Aksu 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.

Tributaries

Where it flows, and what flows into it

In the same basin

Karatal RiverKazakhstanKazakhstan390 km67 m³/sAyaguz RiverKazakhstanKazakhstan492 km8.8 m³/sLepsy RiverKazakhstanKazakhstan417 km19 m³/s

Nearby

Rivers nearby

Lepsy RiverKazakhstanKazakhstan417 km19 m³/s11 km awayKaratal RiverKazakhstanKazakhstan390 km67 m³/s84 km awayAyaguz RiverKazakhstanKazakhstan492 km8.8 m³/s83 km awayIli RiverKazakhstanKazakhstan1,439 km480 m³/s306 km awayCharyn RiverKazakhstanKazakhstan427 km35 m³/s285 km awayChilik RiverKazakhstanKazakhstan245 km32 m³/s285 km awayChong-Kemin RiverKyrgyzstanKyrgyzstan116 km22 m³/s445 km away

Where these numbers come from

Name, length, placesWikidata (Q4059960) · CC0
Course, profile, basinRiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed from the source to the mouth 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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