River
Basento
149 km from source to mouth · Italy.
ItalyFlows into Gulf of Taranto
In numbers
Length
149km
Average flow
120m³/s
Basin
1,537km²
Drop
647m
from 647 m to 0 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
149 km of river and 5 stops on the way: 4 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmApenninesat 647 m
- 1 kmPotenza64,406 people
- 2 kmBridge over the Basento river
- 17 kmVaglio Basilicata1,534 people
- 36 kmAlbano di Lucania1,254 people
- 81 kmGrottole2,174 people
- 149 kmGulf of Tarantoat 0 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Italy
At the mouth it carries 122 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 20 seconds. It drops from 647 m to 0 m, 4.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 1,537 km², about the size of GP. 134,000 people live in it. Highest water: from November to January; lowest: from June to September. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- PotenzaLargest city on its banks · 64,406 people
- Salerno Costa d'Amalfi Airport (QSR)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 75 km from the cityCar hire at BRI airport (Bari)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Basento, month by month
Highest water: from November to January
Lowest water: from June to September. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 2.2 m³/s in the lowest month to 26 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
Basento: the basin in numbers
1,555 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 134,000people live in the basin
- 86/km²people per km²
- 604maverage altitude of the basin
- 631mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 12.8°Caverage air temperature
- 16%protected areas
- 0.1%covered by lakes
What covers the basin
- 14% Forest
- 21% Cropland
- 4% Pasture
- 2% 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
Basento: what you find on the way
- 9Weirs
- 2Boat ramps
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Basento 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.
3beaches at the mouth and on the banksCoastya
5mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Beaches (3)
At the mouth (25 km) and on the banks, by Coastya
- Spiaggia Castellaneta Marina17 km away26.2°C
- Spiaggia di Policoro18 km away26.2°C
- Spiaggia Termitosa20 km away26.2°C
Mountains at the source (5)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Monti Li Foj7.8 km away1,367m
- Monte Romito11 km away867m
- Toppa Pizzuta14 km away770m
- Monte Arioso15 km away
- Monte Grosso7.3 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
Basento in pictures
Nearby
Rivers nearby
AlbaniaWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q791190) · 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 | Coastya, 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.
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