River
Mapocho River
110 km from source to mouth · Chile.
ChileFlows into Maipo River10th longest in Chile
In numbers
Length
110km
Average flow
6.1m³/s
Basin
4,230km²
Drop
394m
from 652 m to 258 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
110 km of river and 9 stops on the way: 6 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmEl Plomoat 652 m
- 16 kmEmbalse Huechún (Tiltil)1.0 km²
- 46 kmEstero Lampatributary
- 47 kmLampa102,234 people
- 72 kmSantiago404,495 people
- 72 kmPuente Los Carros
- 80 kmMaipú521,627 people
- 92 kmPeñaflor85,671 people
- 100 kmTalagante57,323 people
- 105 kmEl Monte26,459 people
- 110 kmMaipo Riverat 258 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Chile
At the mouth it carries 6.1 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 410 seconds. It drops from 652 m to 258 m, 3.6 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 4,230 km², about the size of CV. 5.8 million people live in it. Highest water: from June to July; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- SantiagoLargest city on its banks · 6,257,516 people
- Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 14 km from the cityCar hire at SCL airport (Santiago)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From January to April and OctoberThe best months to visit
Mapocho River, month by month
Highest water: from June to July
Lowest water: from December to March. Best months to visit: from January to April and October.
From about 3.1 m³/s in the lowest month to 84 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
Mapocho River: the basin in numbers
4,412 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 5.8millionpeople live in the basin
- 1,310/km²people per km²
- 1,275maverage altitude of the basin
- 410mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 11.7°Caverage air temperature
- 12%protected areas
- 1%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 1% Forest
- 7% Cropland
- 18% Pasture
- 22% 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
Mapocho River: what you find on the way
- 4Weirs
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.6 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Mapocho 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
97mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Embalse Huechún (Tiltil)km 181.0km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (97)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Cerro Cobre de Chacabuco7.2 km away2,367m
- Cerro Chivato7.2 km away2,232m
- Cerro Algarrobo (Chile, Calle Larga)8.1 km away1,962m
- Cerro Los Vaqueros8.7 km away1,883m
- Cerro Los Caballos14 km away1,699m
- Cerro Las Perdices11 km away1,690m
- Cerro Las Ventanas12 km away1,493m
- Cerro Alto de Huenchún14 km away1,462m
89 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
Mapocho River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Maipo RiverChile270 km160 m³/sTributaries (8)
Also: Rio Molina, Estero Yerba Loca, Estero Arrayán, Estero Lampa, Estero Arrayán, Río San Francisco (Mapocho), Quebrada de Ramón, Zanjón de la Aguada
ArgentinaWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q738973) · 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?
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