River
Chelif River
725 km from source to mouth · Algeria.
AlgeriaFlows into Mediterranean Sea1st longest in Algeria
In numbers
Length
725km
Average flow
54m³/s
Basin
44,035km²
Drop
981m
from 979 m to -2 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
725 km of river and 9 stops on the way: 7 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmAtlas Mountainsat 979 m
- 220 kmBougzoul14,095 people
- 253 kmKsar el Boukhari59,634 people
- 382 kmKhemis Miliana80,512 people
- 421 kmAïn Defla55,259 people
- 466 kmEl Attaf33,349 people
- 516 kmChlef178,616 people
- 549 kmBoukadir28,652 people
- 576 kmBarrage Sidi Abed7.0 km²
- 648 kmOued Minatributary
- 725 kmMediterranean Seaat -2 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Algeria
At the mouth it carries 54 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 46 seconds. It drops from 979 m to -2 m, 1.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 44,035 km², about the size of DK. 4.4 million people live in it. Highest water: from January to February; lowest: from July to October. It is heavily dammed: reservoirs can hold 105% of a year's flow.
Where to start
- ChlefLargest city on its banks · 178,616 people
- Chlef Aboubakr Belkaid International Airport (CFK)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 6 km from the cityCar hire in AlgiersDiscover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From April to June and from September to OctoberThe best months to visit
Chelif River, month by month
Highest water: from January to February
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from April to June and from September to October.
From about 2.5 m³/s in the lowest month to 150 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
Chelif River: the basin in numbers
44,436 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 4.4millionpeople live in the basin
- 99/km²people per km²
- 761maverage altitude of the basin
- 409mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 15.6°Caverage air temperature
- 0.2%covered by lakes
- 1.8km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 3% Forest
- 27% Cropland
- 31% 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
Chelif River: what you find on the way
- 1Weirs
- 3River beachesPlage Sonagther 2, Plage Sakhra, Plage Cheliff
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.2 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Chelif 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.
1lake on its wayLakeyas
2beaches at the mouth and on the banksCoastya
7mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Barrage Sidi Abedkm 4427.0km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Beaches (2)
At the mouth (25 km) and on the banks, by Coastya
- Oureah Plage21 km away24.8°C
- Crique Alquier16 km away · cove24.8°C
Mountains at the source (7)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Argueb Samar11 km away
- Redjem Hammar7.5 km away
- Djebel el Groun15 km away
- Kef Dahmouni11 km away
- Djebel Bou Khannchouch9.0 km away
- Kef Bou Baker8.9 km away
- Djebel Ben Mimoun12 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
Chelif River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (1)
Also: Oued Mina
Spain
MoroccoWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q772214) · 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, 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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