River
Kherlen River
1,254 km from source to mouth · China and Mongolia.
China and MongoliaFlows into Hulun Lake
In numbers
Length
1,254km
Average flow
54m³/s
Basin
116,400km²
Drop
1,089m
from 1,629 m to 540 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
1,254 km of river and 2 stops on the way: 2 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 1,629 m
- 433 kmUndurkhaan22,741 people
- 791 kmChoibalsan44,835 people
- 1,254 kmHulun Lakeat 540 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Asia
At the mouth it carries 54 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 46 seconds. It drops from 1,629 m to 540 m, 0.9 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 116,400 km², about the size of MW. 122,000 people live in it. Highest water: August; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- ChoibalsanLargest city on its banks · 44,835 people
- Choibalsan Airport (COQ)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 11 km from the city
- On the water1 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From June to AugustThe best months to visit
Kherlen River, month by month
Highest water: August
Lowest water: from December to March. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from November to March. Best months to visit: from June to August.
From about 3.9 m³/s in the lowest month to 15 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
Kherlen River: the basin in numbers
75,489 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 122,000people live in the basin
- 2/km²people per km²
- 1,192maverage altitude of the basin
- 259mmof rain a year (basin average)
- -1.0°Caverage air temperature
- 10%protected areas
- 0.1%covered by lakes
- 9%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 3% Forest
- 1% Cropland
- 86% 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
Kherlen River: what you find on the way
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Kherlen 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.
1mountain at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (1)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Burkhan Khaldun15 km away2,450m
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
Kherlen River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
In the same basin
RussiaWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q641020) · 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 | 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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