River
Kushk River
277 km from source to mouth · Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
Turkmenistan and AfghanistanFlows into Marghab River3rd longest in Turkmenistan
In numbers
Length
277km
Average flow
3.5m³/s
Basin
10,700km²
Drop
1,438m
from 1,762 m to 324 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
277 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 1,762 m
- 140 kmSerhetabat5,200 people
- 146 kmSerhetçi3,372 people
- 277 kmMarghab Riverat 324 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River located between Afghanistan and Turkmenistan
At the mouth it carries 3.5 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 710 seconds. It drops from 1,762 m to 324 m, 5.2 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 10,700 km², about the size of XK. 1.1 million people live in it. Highest water: 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
- SerhetabatLargest city on its banks · 5,200 people
- Herat - Khwaja Abdullah Ansari International Airport (HEA)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 119 km from the city
- From April to June and from September to OctoberThe best months to visit
Kushk River, month by month
Highest water: March
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from April to June and from September to October.
From about 10 m³/s in the lowest month to 640 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
Kushk River: the basin in numbers
47,070 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 1.1millionpeople live in the basin
- 23/km²people per km²
- 1,512maverage altitude of the basin
- 324mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 10.5°Caverage air temperature
- 1%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 25% Cropland
- 57% 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.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Kushk 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.
6mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (6)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Kōh-e Takht-e Tarī12 km away2,483m
- Kōh-e Pīrhakah14 km away2,232m
- Silsilah-ye Kōh-e Band-e Sharam5.7 km away1,663m
- Kōh-e Band-e Ghūrī9.5 km away1,453m
- Kōh-e Yatīm Jangal14 km away
- Kōh-e Siyāh Kamar7.2 km away
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.
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Marghab RiverTurkmenistan978 km130 m³/sIn the same basin
Uzbekistan
TajikistanWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q953075) · 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.
beaches
Find your beach: sea temperature, sun and swimming month by month.Visit 
lakes
Every lake on Earth: water temperature, ice, depth and the shore.Coming soonVisit mountains
Every summit in 3D: summit weather, the 0 °C line, huts and trails.Visit 
waterfalls
Every waterfall: height, flow month by month and when it roars.Coming soonVisit 
islands
Every island from the sea up: size, sea temperature, ferries and 3D.Coming soonVisit 
rivers
Every river from source to sea: the journey, the flow and the basin in numbers.You are here
canyons
Every canyon cut to scale: depth to the floor, rim and floor temperatures, trails and viewpoints.Coming soonVisit