River
Essonne
97 km from source to mouth · France.
FranceFlows into Seine
In numbers
Length
97km
Average flow
8.4m³/s
Basin
1,870km²
Drop
70m
from 108 m to 38 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
97 km of river and 23 stops on the way: 21 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 108 m
- 7 kmPithiviers-le-Vieil1,952 people
- 11 kmDadonville2,014 people
- 12 kmPithiviers9,659 people
- 31 kmRimardetributary
- 43 kmMalesherbes6,335 people
- 56 kmMaisse2,776 people
- 61 kmBoutigny-sur-Essonne3,171 people
- 70 kmCerny3,365 people
- 70 kmLa Ferté-Alais4,051 people
- 72 kmBaulne1,453 people
- 75 kmItteville5,650 people
- 76 kmBallancourt-sur-Essonne7,001 people
- 77 kmJuinetributary
- 80 kmVert-le-Petit2,561 people
- 81 kmVert-le-Grand2,014 people
- 87 kmMennecy14,646 people
- 89 kmVillabé5,090 people
- 90 kmOrmoy1,311 people
- 93 kmSaintry-sur-Seine5,308 people
- 96 kmCorbeil-Essonnes40,527 people
- 97 kmSaint-Pierre-du-Perray6,140 people
- 97 kmSaint-Germain-lès-Corbeil7,481 people
- 97 kmÉtiolles2,788 people
- 97 kmSeineat 38 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in France
At the mouth it carries 8.4 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 297 seconds. It drops from 108 m to 38 m, 0.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 1,870 km², about the size of GP. 246,000 people live in it. Highest water: from November to January. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- Corbeil-EssonnesLargest city on its banks · 40,527 people
- Paris-Orly Airport (ORY)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 17 km from the cityCar hire at ORY airport (Paris)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water3 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Essonne, month by month
Highest water: from November to January
Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 4.6 m³/s in the lowest month to 19 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
Essonne: the basin in numbers
1,958 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 246,000people live in the basin
- 125/km²people per km²
- 119maverage altitude of the basin
- 645mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 10.8°Caverage air temperature
- 18%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 3% Forest
- 60% Cropland
- 1% Pasture
- 7% 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
Essonne: what you find on the way
- 8WeirsAncien Moulin Paleau and 7 more
- 6LocksÉcluse n°7 du Coudray and 5 more
- 1Boat ramps
- 2MarinasPort Saintry, Port Autonome d'Evry
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.4 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
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.
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
SeineTributaries (3)
Also: Juine, Rimarde, Ruisseau la Laye du Nord
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q534813) · 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 |
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.



