River
Bandama River
1,050 km from source to mouth · Ivory Coast.
Ivory CoastFlows into Gulf of Guinea1st longest in Ivory Coast
In numbers
Length
1,050km
Average flow
230m³/s
Basin
98,500km²
Drop
347m
from 350 m to 3 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
1,050 km of river and 14 stops on the way: 10 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 350 m
- 158 kmSodesucre Village9,933 people
- 673 kmLake Kossou500 km²
- 673 kmKossou Dam
- 686 kmTombokro9,041 people
- 702 kmBaonfla9,363 people
- 718 kmZambakro10,301 people
- 735 kmKouaméfra11,237 people
- 813 kmTabo8,260 people
- 821 kmTaabo Dam
- 886 kmTiassalé35,090 people
- 933 kmBacanda11,892 people
- 950 kmAhouanou33,939 people
- 975 kmTiébiéssou9,657 people
- 1,008 kmLagune Tagba178 km²
- 1,050 kmGulf of Guineaat 3 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Ivory Coast
At the mouth it carries 230 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 11 seconds. It drops from 350 m to 3 m, 0.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 98,500 km², about the size of KR. 4.9 million people live in it. Highest water: from June to July and from September to October; lowest: from December to March. It is heavily dammed: reservoirs can hold 392% of a year's flow.
Where to start
- TiassaléLargest city on its banks · 35,090 people
- Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport (ABJ)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 122 km from the cityCar hire at ABJ airport (Abidjan)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe1 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From November to JanuaryThe best months to visit
Bandama River, month by month
Highest water: from June to July and from September to October
Lowest water: from December to March. Best months to visit: from November to January.
From about 130 m³/s in the lowest month to 350 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
Bandama River: the basin in numbers
99,253 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 4.9millionpeople live in the basin
- 50/km²people per km²
- 266maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,189mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 26.6°Caverage air temperature
- 17%protected areas
- 0.6%covered by lakes
- 28km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 43% Forest
- 28% Cropland
- 39% 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
Bandama River: what you find on the way
- 2Weirs
- 1Canoe put-ins
- 2Ferry piersBraffedon pier
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.4 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Bandama 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
2mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (2)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Lake Kossoukm 609500km²
- Lagune Tagbakm 913178km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (2)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Tianha7.8 km away
- Landiougou-Toupoungo12 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
Bandama River in pictures


Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (1)
Also: Yadouka
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q789969) · 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 | 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?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.