River
Barka River
500 km from source to mouth · Sudan and Eritrea.
Sudan and EritreaFlows into Red Sea5th longest in Sudan
In numbers
Length
500km
Average flow
25m³/s
Basin
66,200km²
Drop
811m
from 811 m to 0 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
500 km of river and 3 stops on the way: 2 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 811 m
- 67 kmAk’ordat8,857 people
- 281 kmAnseba Rivertributary
- 461 kmTokār37,051 people
- 500 kmRed Seaat 0 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Eritrea and Sudan
At the mouth it carries 25 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 99 seconds. It drops from 811 m to 0 m, 1.6 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 66,200 km², about the size of LK. 2.3 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from February to May. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- TokārLargest city on its banks · 37,051 people
- Port Sudan New International Airport (PZU)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 124 km from the city
- From December to FebruaryThe best months to visit
Barka River, month by month
Highest water: from August to September
Lowest water: from February to May. Best months to visit: from December to February.
From about 11 m³/s in the lowest month to 410 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
Barka River: the basin in numbers
63,986 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 2.3millionpeople live in the basin
- 35/km²people per km²
- 754maverage altitude of the basin
- 243mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 26.7°Caverage air temperature
- 5%protected areas
- 0.0km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 1% Cropland
- 64% 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
Barka River: what you find on the way
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Barka 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.
38mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (38)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Debra Ugul13 km away
- Serae11 km away
- Baga Tia4.7 km away
- Kesa-Maktab9.9 km away
- Dembe-Bel6.8 km away
- Mamber2.8 km away
- Sherefa-Uchchagereba11 km away
- Ondukurry13 km away
30 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.
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (1)
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q808239) · 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?
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