River
Maya
1,053 km from source to mouth · Russia.
RussiaFlows into Aldan
In numbers
Length
1,053km
Average flow
1,200m³/s
Basin
171,000km²
Drop
534m
from 639 m to 105 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
1,053 km of river and 4 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 639 m
- 423 kmSeverny Uytributary
- 512 kmMaymakantributary
- 707 kmAimtributary
- 806 kmYudomatributary
- 1,053 kmAldanat 105 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Yakutia, Russia
At the mouth it carries 1,180 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 2.1 seconds. It drops from 639 m to 105 m, 0.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 171,000 km², about the size of UY. 121,000 people live in it. Highest water, with the snowmelt: from July to August; lowest: from January to April. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- Ust-MayaLargest city on its banks · 3,062 people
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From July to AugustThe best months to visit
Maya, month by month
Highest water: from July to August
Lowest water: from January to April. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from October to April. Melting snow makes up much of its water. Best months to visit: from July to August.
From about 120 m³/s in the lowest month to 12,600 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
Maya: the basin in numbers
446,268 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 121,000people live in the basin
- 0/km²people per km²
- 761maverage altitude of the basin
- 516mmof rain a year (basin average)
- -9.5°Caverage air temperature
- 6%protected areas
- 0.1%covered by lakes
- 93%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 66% Forest
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
Maya: what you find on the way
- 2Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.8 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
Maya in pictures




Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
AldanTributaries (4)
Also: Yudoma, Maymakan, Severny Uy, Aim
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q831383) · 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 |
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.