River
Atrek River
669 km from source to mouth · Iran and Turkmenistan.
Iran and TurkmenistanFlows into Caspian Sea5th longest in Iran
In numbers
Length
669km
Average flow
9.2m³/s
Basin
27,300km²
Drop
1,286m
from 1,568 m to 282 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
669 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 kmSourceat 1,568 m
- 43 kmQuchan101,604 people
- 43 kmQūchān111,752 people
- 55 kmShahr-e Kohneh3,683 people
- 76 kmFārūj12,061 people
- 111 kmShīrvān82,790 people
- 117 kmQolchoq Rivertributary
- 320 kmCaspian Seaat 282 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Iran and Turkmenistan
At the mouth it carries 9.2 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 272 seconds. It drops from 1,568 m to 282 m, 1.9 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 27,300 km², about the size of HT. 616,000 people live in it. Highest water: from March to April; lowest: from July to October. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- QūchānLargest city on its banks · 111,752 people
- Ashgabat International Airport (ASB)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 99 km from the city
- Kayak and canoe1 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From April to June and from September to OctoberThe best months to visit
Atrek River, month by month
Highest water: from March to April
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from April to June and from September to October.
From about 8.0 m³/s in the lowest month to 320 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
Atrek River: the basin in numbers
16,570 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 616,000people live in the basin
- 37/km²people per km²
- 1,314maverage altitude of the basin
- 270mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 11.7°Caverage air temperature
- 3%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 11% Cropland
- 74% 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
Atrek River: what you find on the way
- 2Weirs
- 1Rapids
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.9 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Atrek 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.
6mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (6)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Kūh-e Tarkānlū12 km away
- Kūh-e Kākh11 km away
- Kūhhā-ye Delāghūrt12 km away
- Kūh-e Kūshkak15 km away
- Gondeh Kūh6.1 km away
- Kūh-e Qeshlāq-e Nāderī15 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.
Photos
Atrek River in pictures


Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (3)
Also: Sumbar River, Qolchoq River, Laq River
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q283622) · 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.