River
Malagarasi River
475 km from source to mouth · Tanzania.
TanzaniaFlows into Lake Tanganyika5th longest in Tanzania
In numbers
Length
475km
Average flow
340m³/s
Basin
130,000km²
Drop
385m
from 1,152 m to 767 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
475 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 kmSourceat 1,152 m
- 365 kmUvinza24,650 people
- 367 kmKikwete Bridge
- 475 kmLake Tanganyikaat 767 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River
At the mouth it carries 342 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 7.3 seconds. It drops from 1,152 m to 767 m, 0.8 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 130,000 km², about the size of NI. 5.5 million people live in it. Highest water: from March to April; lowest: from August to November. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- UvinzaLargest city on its banks · 24,650 people
- Kalemie Airport (FMI)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 153 km from the cityCar hire at MWZ airport (Mwanza)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From June to OctoberThe best months to visit
Malagarasi River, month by month
Highest water: from March to April
Lowest water: from August to November. Best months to visit: from June to October.
From about 150 m³/s in the lowest month to 650 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
Malagarasi River: the basin in numbers
128,458 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 5.5millionpeople live in the basin
- 43/km²people per km²
- 1,194maverage altitude of the basin
- 976mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 22.5°Caverage air temperature
- 49%protected areas
- 0.4%covered by lakes
What covers the basin
- 36% Forest
- 8% Cropland
- 43% 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.
Along the river
Malagarasi River: what you find on the way
- 2Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.5 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
Malagarasi River in pictures

Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
In the same basin
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1514693) · 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 |
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.