River
Kocher
168 km from source to mouth · Germany.
GermanyFlows into Neckar
In numbers
Length
168km
Average flow
23m³/s
Basin
1,961km²
Drop
260m
from 412 m to 152 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
168 km of river and 32 stops on the way: 21 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 412 m
- 0 kmAalen67,085 people
- 8 kmHüttlingen5,678 people
- 17 kmAbtsgmünd7,381 people
- 47 kmRottributary
- 49 kmGaildorf12,571 people
- 61 kmMichelbach an der Bilz3,401 people
- 62 kmRosengarten5,301 people
- 67 kmBiberstributary
- 69 kmSchwäbisch Hall36,543 people
- 69 kmHenkersbrücke
- 75 kmUntermünkheim3,019 people
- 81 kmBühlertributary
- 83 kmKocher Viaduct
- 86 kmBraunsbach2,382 people
- 104 kmKünzelsau15,070 people
- 105 kmEisenbahnbrücke Künzelsau
- 109 kmIngelfingen5,468 people
- 111 kmCriesbach Bridge
- 113 kmNiedernhall4,132 people
- 116 kmWeißbach2,082 people
- 120 kmKupfertributary
- 120 kmForchtenberg5,105 people
- 136 kmOhrntributary
- 142 kmLangenbrettach3,694 people
- 150 kmNeuenstadt am Kocher10,218 people
- 160 kmOedheim5,921 people
- 163 kmHagenbach1,438 people
- 163 kmEisenbahnbrücke über den Kocher bei Bad Friedrichshall
- 166 kmKochendorf8,841 people
- 166 kmJagstfeld4,122 people
- 168 kmUntereisesheim3,861 people
- 168 kmBrettachtributary
- 168 kmNeckarat 152 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Germany
At the mouth it carries 23 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 109 seconds. It drops from 412 m to 152 m, 1.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 1,961 km², about the size of MU. 343,000 people live in it. Highest water: February. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- AalenLargest city on its banks · 67,085 people
- Stuttgart Airport (STR)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 66 km from the cityCar hire at STR airport (Stuttgart)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water5 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe26 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Kocher, month by month
Highest water: February
Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 8.5 m³/s in the lowest month to 55 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
Kocher: the basin in numbers
1,955 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 343,000people live in the basin
- 175/km²people per km²
- 407maverage altitude of the basin
- 715mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 8.8°Caverage air temperature
- 21%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 43% Forest
- 28% Cropland
- 16% Pasture
- 11% 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
Kocher: what you find on the way
- 67WeirsAlgishofen, Münstermühle, Hagen and 64 more
- 3LocksNeckar
- 6WaterfallsFilgenbachwasserfall (Kühseich), Schleifbachklinge, Goldbrunnen and 3 more
- 1Rapids
- 25Canoe put-insUntergröningen, Laufen am Kocher, Wehr, Steinkirchen and 22 more
- 2Boat ramps
- 1MarinasYachtclub Sund EV
- 7River beaches
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.4 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Kocher 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.
38mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (38)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Volkmarsberg2.3 km away · prominence 62 m744m
- Rosenstein10 km away735m
- Falkenberg14 km away776m
- Bärenberg8.8 km away · prominence 48 m756m
- P.76812 km away · prominence 46 m768m
- Utzenberg10 km away · prominence 50 m767m
- Grünenberg9.1 km away · prominence 224 m732m
- Hausknecht12 km away694m
30 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
Kocher in pictures




Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
NeckarTributaries (29)
Also: Brettach, Lein, Laxbach, Eisbach, Bibers, Blinde Rot, Schwarzer Kocher, Sall, Bühler, Aal, Kupfer, Weißer Kocher, Ohrn, Rot, Adelbach, Reichenbach, Ernsbach, Deubach, Badersklingenbach, Katzenbach (Schwarzer Kocher), Grimmbach, Großer Wimbach, Gutenbach (Schwarzer Kocher), Rötenbach
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q694805) · 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?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.