River
Luo River
420 km from source to mouth · China.
ChinaFlows into Yiluo River
In numbers
Length
420km
Average flow
420m³/s
Basin
19,200km²
Drop
1,013m
from 1,121 m to 108 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
420 km of river and 2 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmMount Huaat 1,121 m
- 201 kmGuxian Reservoir19 km²
- 334 kmLuoyang7,056,699 people
- 420 kmYiluo Riverat 108 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 422 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 5.9 seconds. It drops from 1,121 m to 108 m, 2.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 19,200 km², about the size of FJ. 7.6 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from December to March. It is heavily dammed: reservoirs can hold 96% of a year's flow.
Where to start
- LuoyangLargest city on its banks · 7,056,699 people
- Luoyang Beijiao Airport (LYA)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 10 km from the city
- On the water5 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From April to June and from September to OctoberThe best months to visit
Luo River, month by month
Highest water: from August to September
Lowest water: from December to March. Best months to visit: from April to June and from September to October.
From about 21 m³/s in the lowest month to 190 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
Luo River: the basin in numbers
18,911 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 7.6millionpeople live in the basin
- 400/km²people per km²
- 748maverage altitude of the basin
- 683mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 11.9°Caverage air temperature
- 3%protected areas
- 0.5%covered by lakes
- 2.5km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 26% Forest
- 28% Cropland
- 39% 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
Luo River: what you find on the way
- 11Weirs
- 2Ferry piers
- 3Marinas
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.0 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Luo 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.
1lake on its wayLakeyas
2mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Guxian Reservoirkm 19819km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (2)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Caolian Ling12 km away
- Jianyu Ling13 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.
Photos
Luo River in pictures

Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1204978) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Course, profile, basin | RiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed along the river network from the point 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 | Lakeyas, 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.