In numbers
Length
301km
Average flow
480m³/s
Basin
37,000km²
Drop
271m
from 430 m to 159 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
301 km of river and 18 stops on the way: 2 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmTeletskoeat 430 m
- 0 kmYurtoktributary
- 0 kmTeletskoe218 km²
- 2 kmIogachtributary
- 17 kmPyzhatributary
- 28 kmKebezenkatributary
- 28 kmSarakokshatributary
- 41 kmTuloytributary
- 61 kmTondoshkatributary
- 74 kmTurochak5,514 people
- 83 kmLebedtributary
- 102 kmPolyshtributary
- 102 kmUlmentributary
- 118 kmTibezyatributary
- 165 kmOrgatributary
- 168 kmKazhatributary
- 212 kmNenyatributary
- 274 kmKommunalny Bridge
- 277 kmBiysk215,430 people
- 301 kmObat 159 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
Right headwater of Ob in Altai Republic, Russia
At the mouth it carries 477 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 5.2 seconds. It drops from 430 m to 159 m, 0.9 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 37,000 km², about the size of GW. 199,000 people live in it. Highest water: from April to June; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- BiyskLargest city on its banks · 215,430 people
- Barnaul Gherman Titov International Airport (BAX)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 144 km from the city
- On the water21 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe18 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to AugustThe best months to visit
Biya, month by month
Highest water: from April to June
Lowest water: from December to March. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from November to March. Best months to visit: from May to August.
From about 71 m³/s in the lowest month to 940 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
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The basin
Biya: the basin in numbers
36,849 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 199,000people live in the basin
- 6/km²people per km²
- 1,345maverage altitude of the basin
- 432mmof rain a year (basin average)
- -1.3°Caverage air temperature
- 26%protected areas
- 0.9%covered by lakes
- 39%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 68% Forest
- 5% Cropland
- 3% 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
Biya: what you find on the way
- 2Waterfalls
- 17Rapids
- 1Canoe put-ins
- 10Ferry piers
- 10Marinas
- 3River beaches
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.1 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Biya 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
5mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Teletskoekm 0 · 325 m deep218km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (5)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Gora Kukuya7.6 km away
- Gora Pertuve12 km away
- Gora Kiver'9.5 km away
- Gora Tazagon11 km away
- Gora Cheptu13 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
Biya in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Ob
Russia3,650 km12,500 m³/sTributaries (22)
Also: Lebed, Bekhtemir, Nenya, Alemchir, Kazha, Sarakoksha, Tondoshka, Tuloy, Ulmen, Ushpa, Bava, Bolshoy Kuyut, Tibezya, Uchurga, Chapshushka, Yurtok, Pyzha, Kebezenka, Polysh, Souskanikha, Orga, Iogach
KazakhstanWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q859934) · 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, 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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