Stream
Obel River
63 km from source to mouth · Eritrea.
EritreaFlows into Mareb River3rd longest in Eritrea
In numbers
Length
63km
Average flow
5.5m³/s
Basin
1,500km²
Drop
542m
from 1,591 m to 1,049 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
63 km of river and 0 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 1,591 m
- 63 kmMareb Riverat 1,049 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Eritrea
At the mouth it carries 5.5 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 454 seconds. It drops from 1,591 m to 1,049 m, 8.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 1,500 km², about the size of GP. 145,000 people live in it. Highest water: August; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- Mai-MneA town on its banks
- Axum Airport (AXU)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 54 km from the city
- From October to FebruaryThe best months to visit
Obel River, month by month
Highest water: August
Lowest water: from December to March. Best months to visit: from October to February.
From about 0.3 m³/s in the lowest month to 31 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
Obel River: the basin in numbers
1,510 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 145,000people live in the basin
- 96/km²people per km²
- 1,634maverage altitude of the basin
- 663mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 21.7°Caverage air temperature
What covers the basin
- 10% Cropland
- 68% Pasture
- 9% 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
Obel 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.
44mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (44)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Fondonay11 km away2,049m
- Edaga Abbakullo9.1 km away2,028m
- Fundinai11 km away
- Ad Adda14 km away
- Adi Bari12 km away
- Shigiuni11 km away
- Grad Kale3.3 km away
- Amba Katay3.9 km away
36 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
Obel River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Mareb River
Sudan440 km80 m³/sIn the same basin
Egypt6,650 km2,800 m³/sWhite NileSudan2,620 km880 m³/sBlue NileSudan1,783 km1,500 m³/sKagera River
Uganda400 km350 m³/sSobat River
South Sudan306 km410 m³/sAtbarah RiverSudan1,120 km370 m³/sBahr el Ghazal RiverSouth Sudan716 km2.0 m³/sTekezé RiverSudan608 km140 m³/sMara River
Tanzania395 km18 m³/sValley of the QueensEgypt4,302 km2,600 m³/sWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1632345) · 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 | 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
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