River
Ceyhan River
474 km from source to mouth · Turkey.
TurkeyFlows into Mediterranean Sea9th longest in Turkey
In numbers
Length
474km
Average flow
230m³/s
Basin
21,200km²
Drop
1,133m
from 1,133 m to 0 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
474 km of river and 10 stops on the way: 3 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 1,133 m
- 3 kmElbistan80,456 people
- 30 kmGöksun Rivertributary
- 123 kmMenzelet Reservoir26 km²
- 135 kmCeyhan Bridge
- 143 kmAksu Rivertributary
- 236 kmAslantaş Reservoir37 km²
- 337 kmCeyhan96,303 people
- 365 kmMisis Bridge
- 382 kmAbdioğlu Cumhuriyet1,669 people
- 466 kmLake Akyayan10 km²
- 474 kmMediterranean Seaat 0 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Adana, south-central Turkey
At the mouth it carries 230 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 11 seconds. It drops from 1,133 m to 0 m, 2.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 21,200 km², about the size of SV. 2.0 million people live in it. Highest water: from January to February; lowest: from July to October. It is heavily dammed: reservoirs can hold 58% of a year's flow.
Where to start
- CeyhanLargest city on its banks · 96,303 people
- Çukurova International Airport (COV)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 68 km from the cityCar hire at HTY airport (Antakya)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From May to July and from September to OctoberThe best months to visit
Ceyhan River, month by month
Highest water: from January to February
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from May to July and from September to October.
From about 70 m³/s in the lowest month to 550 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
Ceyhan River: the basin in numbers
21,248 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 2.0millionpeople live in the basin
- 95/km²people per km²
- 1,006maverage altitude of the basin
- 643mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 12.7°Caverage air temperature
- 0.6%covered by lakes
- 4.7km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 8% Forest
- 32% Cropland
- 14% Pasture
- 3% 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
Ceyhan River: what you find on the way
- 17Weirs
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.0 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Ceyhan 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.
3lakes on its wayLakeyas
5mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (3)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Menzelet Reservoirkm 103 · 50 m deep26km²
- Aslantaş Reservoirkm 19837km²
- Lake Akyayankm 391 · 3 m deep10km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (5)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Şar Dağı6.3 km away
- Akziyaret Hill13 km away
- Salavan Dağı14 km away
- Mount Medetsiz8.2 km away
- Mount Doğanhöyük14 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
Ceyhan River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (2)
Also: Aksu River, Göksun River
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1057961) · 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?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.


