River
Karakash River
740 km from source to mouth · China.
ChinaFlows into Hotan River
In numbers
Length
740km
Average flow
70m³/s
Basin
19,983km²
Drop
4,098m
from 5,306 m to 1,208 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
740 km of river and 7 stops on the way: 7 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmKarakorumat 5,306 m
- 539 kmLangru16,505 people
- 565 kmLayka29,032 people
- 587 kmQaraqash66,541 people
- 592 kmYing’awati23,624 people
- 612 kmSegezikule9,576 people
- 642 kmKawake10,992 people
- 659 kmTawakule26,983 people
- 740 kmHotan Riverat 1,208 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in People's Republic of China
At the mouth it carries 70 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 36 seconds. It drops from 5,306 m to 1,208 m, 5.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 19,983 km², about the size of SI. 275,000 people live in it. Highest water: from May to June; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- QaraqashLargest city on its banks · 66,541 people
- Hotan Airport (HTN)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 28 km from the city
- From June to AugustThe best months to visit
Karakash River, month by month
Highest water: from May to June
Lowest water: from December to March. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from December to February. Best months to visit: from June to August.
From about 0.0 m³/s in the lowest month to 11 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
Karakash River: the basin in numbers
22,974 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 275,000people live in the basin
- 12/km²people per km²
- 4,276maverage altitude of the basin
- 48mmof rain a year (basin average)
- -2.8°Caverage air temperature
- 10%glaciers
- 55%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 2% Forest
- 1% Cropland
- 11% Pasture
- 1% Towns and cities
- 10% Ice
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
Karakash River: what you find on the way
- 6Weirs
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
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
Karakash River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Hotan RiverChina1,035 km140 m³/s
KyrgyzstanWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q2339487) · 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 |
Every source and licence is on the data sources page.
The family
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