River
Apurímac River
850 km from source to mouth · Peru.
PeruFlows into Ene River5th longest in Peru
In numbers
Length
850km
Average flow
2,100m³/s
Basin
125,000km²
Drop
4,012m
from 4,474 m to 462 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
850 km of river and 4 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmNevado Mismiat 4,474 m
- 188 kmQueshuachaca
- 358 kmRío Santo Tomástributary
- 551 kmPachachaca Rivertributary
- 564 kmPampas Rivertributary
- 850 kmEne Riverat 462 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Peru
At the mouth it carries 2,118 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 1.2 seconds. It drops from 4,474 m to 462 m, 4.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 125,000 km², about the size of ER. 2.5 million people live in it. Highest water: from February to March; lowest: from June to September. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- CanayreA town on its banks
- Air Force Colonel Alfredo Mendivil Duarte Airport (AYP)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 99 km from the cityCar hire at LIM airport (Lima)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water24 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Apurímac River, month by month
Highest water: from February to March
Lowest water: from June to September. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 540 m³/s in the lowest month to 4,300 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
Apurímac River: the basin in numbers
99,585 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 2.5millionpeople live in the basin
- 26/km²people per km²
- 3,835maverage altitude of the basin
- 845mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 8.0°Caverage air temperature
- 6%protected areas
- 0.5%covered by lakes
- 0.8km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 18% Forest
- 5% Cropland
- 40% 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
Apurímac River: what you find on the way
- 6WaterfallsUchuhuerta Waterfall, Cascada Santa Rosa and 4 more
- 24Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.4 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Apurímac 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.
39mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (39)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Ccella Ccella14 km away5,049m
- Cairahuiri14 km away5,000m
- Minasnioc12 km away5,000m
- Cerro Sani9.3 km away
- Cerro Parra Parra5.7 km away
- Cerro Cosana12 km away
- Cerro Ancarrache10 km away
- Cerro Cullulli7.2 km away
31 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
Apurímac River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Ene RiverPeru160 km2,500 m³/sTributaries (13)
Also: Pachachaca River, Río Santo Tomás, Pampas River, Hatun Wayq'u, Cerritambo River, Río Chuimacota, Pichari River, Piene River, Oquero River, Salado River, Velille River, Vilcabamba River, Yanama River
In the same basin
Brazil6,400 km209,000 m³/sRio NegroBrazil2,250 km30,000 m³/sMadeira RiverBrazil1,450 km31,200 m³/sMarañón RiverPeru1,737 km16,700 m³/sUcayali RiverPeru1,460 km12,600 m³/sJapurá RiverBrazil2,820 km13,900 m³/sXingu RiverBrazil1,640 km9,700 m³/sMamoré RiverBrazil1,930 km11,600 m³/sJuruá RiverBrazil3,100 km4,800 m³/sTapajós RiverBrazil1,930 km13,000 m³/sWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q214921) · 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.
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Every river from source to sea: the journey, the flow and the basin in numbers.You are here
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