River
Baro River
306 km from source to mouth · Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Ethiopia and South SudanFlows into Sobat River4th longest in Ethiopia
In numbers
Length
306km
Average flow
240m³/s
Basin
41,400km²
Drop
154m
from 557 m to 403 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
306 km of river and 5 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmEthiopian Highlandsat 557 m
- 14 kmGebba Rivertributary
- 14 kmBirbir Rivertributary
- 63 kmGambēla97,600 people
- 198 kmJikawo Rivertributary
- 267 kmAlero Rivertributary
- 306 kmSobat Riverat 403 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in southwestern Ethiopia
At the mouth it carries 241 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 10 seconds. It drops from 557 m to 403 m, 0.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 41,400 km², about the size of CH. 5.4 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to October; lowest: from January to April. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- GambēlaLargest city on its banks · 97,600 people
- Gambela Airport (GMB)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 14 km from the city
- From November to JanuaryThe best months to visit
Baro River, month by month
Highest water: from August to October
Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from November to January.
From about 180 m³/s in the lowest month to 900 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
Baro River: the basin in numbers
175,901 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 5.4millionpeople live in the basin
- 30/km²people per km²
- 785maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,063mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 25.2°Caverage air temperature
- 30%protected areas
- 0.1km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 21% Forest
- 7% Cropland
- 38% 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.
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
It flows into
Sobat RiverTributaries (4)
Also: Jikawo River, Alero River, Birbir River, Gebba River
In the same basin
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q808543) · 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 |
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.