River
Diyala River
231 km from source to mouth · Iraq and Iran.
Iraq and IranFlows into Tigris5th longest in Iraq
In numbers
Length
231km
Average flow
130m³/s
Basin
30,000km²
Drop
83m
from 114 m to 31 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
231 km of river and 3 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmZagros Mountainsat 114 m
- 6 kmAlwand Rivertributary
- 41 kmLake Hamrin80 km²
- 139 kmBaqubah467,900 people
- 231 kmTigrisat 31 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Iraq and Iran
At the mouth it carries 130 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 19 seconds. It drops from 114 m to 31 m, 0.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 30,000 km², about the size of AM. 3.4 million people live in it. Highest water: from February to March; lowest: from July to October. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (44% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- BaqubahLargest city on its banks · 467,900 people
- Baghdad International Airport / New Al Muthana Air Base (BGW)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 66 km from the city
- From March to April and from October to NovemberThe best months to visit
Diyala River, month by month
Highest water: from February to March
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from March to April and from October to November.
From about 22 m³/s in the lowest month to 980 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
Diyala River: the basin in numbers
32,976 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 3.4millionpeople live in the basin
- 102/km²people per km²
- 1,020maverage altitude of the basin
- 498mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 16.6°Caverage air temperature
- 1%protected areas
- 0.7%covered by lakes
- 3.9km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 4% Forest
- 31% Cropland
- 22% 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
Diyala River: what you find on the way
- 2Weirs
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.1 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Diyala 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
11mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Lake Hamrinkm 3580km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (11)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Jabal Jubbah10 km away
- Tall Saḩar7.8 km away
- Tall al Ghazāl8.7 km away
- Tall Manjal11 km away
- Tall Abū Şakhr14 km away
- Jabal Ḩalwān6.8 km away
- Jabal Ḩisbah6.1 km away
- Tall Abyaḑ4.1 km away
3 more on PeakyasOpen Peakyas ↗
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
Diyala River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
TigrisIraq1,850 km1,000 m³/sTributaries (3)
Also: Alwand River, Lela River, Darreh-ye Tangīvar
In the same basin
Syria
TurkeyWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q304413) · 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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