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River

Gorgol River

258 km from source to mouth · Mauritania.

MauritaniaMauritaniaFlows into Senegal River3rd longest in Mauritania

Follow the riverMonth by month

SourceMouth
The river and every tributary in its basin, drawn from RiverATLAS (CC BY 4.0).

In numbers

Length

258km

Average flow

66m³/s

Basin

21,800km²

Drop

68m

from 77 m to 9 m

Country

1

The journey

From source to mouth

258 km of river and 3 stops on the way: 3 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.

77 m9 m
Sourceat 77 m0 km
Lexeiba Un11,417 people210 km
Senegal Riverat 9 m258 km
0100200258 km
  1. 0 kmSourceat 77 m
  2. 210 kmLexeiba Un11,417 people
  3. 226 kmGanki Un11,250 people
  4. 257 kmKaédi56,283 people
  5. 258 kmSenegal Riverat 9 m

Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.

River in Mauritania

At the mouth it carries 66 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 38 seconds. It drops from 77 m to 9 m, 0.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 21,800 km², about the size of SV. 329,000 people live in it. Highest water: September; lowest: from January to April. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (24% of a year's flow).

Read more on Wikipedia

Where to start

  • KaédiLargest city on its banks · 56,283 people
  • On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
  • From December to FebruaryThe best months to visit

Gorgol River, month by month

Highest water: September

Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from December to February.

2.9
24°0 mmJan
2.9
26°0 mmFeb
2.9
29°0 mmMar
2.9
32°0 mmApr
2.9
34°1 mmMay
8.0
35°17 mmJun
64
32°59 mmJul
200
30°97 mmAug
250
31°71 mmSep
180
31°11 mmOct
66
28°1 mmNov
4.7
25°0 mmDec
Water (estimated flow)Air (average) Rain (mm)Best months

From about 2.9 m³/s in the lowest month to 250 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

Car hire at NKC airport (Nouakchott)Discover CarsSee 

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

Gorgol River: the basin in numbers

21,670 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.

Heavily regulatedReservoirs can hold 24% of a year's flow: dams shape its seasons.
  • 329,000people live in the basin
  • 15/km²people per km²
  • 103maverage altitude of the basin
  • 223mmof rain a year (basin average)
  • 29.4°Caverage air temperature
  • 0.7%covered by lakes
  • 0.5km³held in reservoirs

What covers the basin

  • 1% Cropland
  • 43% Pasture

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

Gorgol River: what you find on the way

  • 4DamsBarrage de Foum Gleita and 3 more
  • 2Weirs
  • 2Ferry piers

From OpenStreetMap, within 2.0 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.

From space

The source and the mouth, seen from orbit

Gorgol River: satellite view of the source
The source14 km across
Gorgol River: satellite view of the mouth
The mouth20 km across

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

Senegal RiverSenegalSenegal1,050 km640 m³/s

In the same basin

Bakoy RiverMaliMali400 km370 m³/sBafing RiverMaliMali500 km370 m³/sFalémé RiverMauritaniaMauritania400 km480 m³/sKarakoro RiverMauritaniaMauritania697 km

Nearby

Rivers nearby

Falémé RiverMauritaniaMauritania400 km480 m³/s200 km awayKarakoro RiverMauritaniaMauritania697 km220 km awayGambia RiverGambiaGambia1,130 km2,000 m³/s415 km awayBakoy RiverMaliMali400 km370 m³/s384 km awayBafing RiverMaliMali500 km370 m³/s384 km awaySaloum RiverSenegalSenegal378 km13 m³/s405 km awayGeba RiverGuinea-BissauGuinea-Bissau545 km130 m³/s492 km awayRio de CanjambariGuinea-BissauGuinea-Bissau69 km26 m³/s449 km away

Where these numbers come from

Name, length, placesWikidata (Q2679286) · CC0
Course, profile, basinRiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed along the river network from the point given by Wikidata
FlowWaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Climate along the riverWorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Towns, bridges, damsWikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0
Along the river© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX 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.

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