Stream
Bahr el Ghazal River
716 km from source to mouth · South Sudan.
South SudanFlows into White Nile1st longest in South Sudan
In numbers
Length
716km
Average flow
2.0m³/s
Basin
520,000km²
Drop
270m
from 658 m to 388 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
716 km of river and 4 stops on the way: 2 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 658 m
- 349 kmWau127,384 people
- 427 kmGogrial44,600 people
- 583 kmBahr al-Arabtributary
- 684 kmLake No47 km²
- 716 kmWhite Nileat 388 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in South Sudan
At the mouth it carries 2.0 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 1,250 seconds. It drops from 658 m to 388 m, 0.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 520,000 km², about the size of TH. 11.4 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from January to April. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- WauLargest city on its banks · 127,384 people
- Wau Airport (WUU)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 3 km from the city
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From November to JanuaryThe best months to visit
Bahr el Ghazal River, month by month
Highest water: from August to September
Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from November to January.
From about 220 m³/s in the lowest month to 2,800 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
Bahr el Ghazal River: the basin in numbers
598,744 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 11.4millionpeople live in the basin
- 19/km²people per km²
- 564maverage altitude of the basin
- 765mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 26.6°Caverage air temperature
- 8%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 18% Forest
- 12% Cropland
- 58% 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
Bahr el Ghazal River: what you find on the way
- 2Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.9 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Bahr el Ghazal 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.
1lake on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Lake Nokm 95447km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
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
Bahr el Ghazal River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
White Nile
Sudan2,620 km880 m³/sTributaries (1)
Also: Bahr al-Arab
In the same basin
Egypt6,650 km2,800 m³/sBlue NileSudan1,783 km1,500 m³/sKagera River
Uganda400 km350 m³/sSobat RiverSouth Sudan306 km410 m³/sAtbarah RiverSudan1,120 km370 m³/sTekezé RiverSudan608 km140 m³/sMara River
Tanzania395 km18 m³/sValley of the QueensEgypt4,302 km2,600 m³/sBaro River
Ethiopia306 km240 m³/sSemliki RiverUganda230 km240 m³/sWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q803634) · 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 — 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
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