River
Farah River
580 km from source to mouth · Afghanistan.
AfghanistanFlows into Daryācheh-ye Hāmūn Şāberī1st longest in Afghanistan
In numbers
Length
580km
Average flow
35m³/s
Basin
28,015km²
Drop
2,047m
from 2,518 m to 471 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
580 km of river and 2 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 2,518 m
- 416 kmFarah43,561 people
- 552 kmDaryācheh-ye Hāmūn Şāberī489 km²
- 580 kmDaryācheh-ye Hāmūn Şāberīat 471 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Afghanistan
At the mouth it carries 35 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 71 seconds. It drops from 2,518 m to 471 m, 3.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 28,015 km², about the size of GQ. 539,000 people live in it. Highest water: from February to March; lowest: from July to October. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- FarahLargest city on its banks · 43,561 people
- Herat - Khwaja Abdullah Ansari International Airport (HEA)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 204 km from the city
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From April to June and from September to OctoberThe best months to visit
Farah River, month by month
Highest water: from February to March
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from April to June and from September to October.
From about 0.0 m³/s in the lowest month to 290 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
Farah River: the basin in numbers
30,340 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 539,000people live in the basin
- 18/km²people per km²
- 1,714maverage altitude of the basin
- 193mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 11.6°Caverage air temperature
- 2%protected areas
- 0.1%covered by lakes
What covers the basin
- 17% Cropland
- 53% Pasture
- 1% 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
Farah River: what you find on the way
- 1Waterfalls
- 2Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.1 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Farah 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
32mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Daryācheh-ye Hāmūn Şāberīkm 587489km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (32)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Khushkāwah8.9 km away2,847m
- Band-e Bowr9.9 km away2,783m
- Armānābād3.0 km away2,756m
- Kōrow13 km away
- Palpalsow11 km away
- Shakhfalak8.7 km away
- Sang-e Dumdarāz14 km away
- Garmāw9.7 km away
24 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
Farah River in pictures

Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q2091566) · 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.