River
Okavango Delta
1,343 km from source to mouth · Botswana.
Botswana2nd longest in BotswanaUNESCO World Heritage
In numbers
Length
1,343km
Average flow
240m³/s
Basin
244,155km²
Drop
655m
from 1,615 m to 960 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
1,343 km of river and 6 stops on the way: 5 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 1,615 m
- 224 kmCuchi15,000 people
- 792 kmRundu75,180 people
- 794 kmCalai8,741 people
- 906 kmNdiyona20,633 people
- 1,064 kmShakawe10,589 people
- 1,135 kmOkavango Rivertributary
- 1,343 kmMouthat 960 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River delta in Botswana
At the mouth it carries 236 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 11 seconds. It drops from 1,615 m to 960 m, 0.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 244,155 km², about the size of GB. 1.1 million people live in it. Highest water: from February to March; lowest: from July to October. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- RunduLargest city on its banks · 75,180 people
- Rundu Airport (NDU)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 7 km from the cityCar hire at MUB airport (Maun)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water19 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe15 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Okavango Delta, month by month
Highest water: from February to March
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 76 m³/s in the lowest month to 400 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
Okavango Delta: the basin in numbers
244,155 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 1.1millionpeople live in the basin
- 5/km²people per km²
- 1,305maverage altitude of the basin
- 726mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 21.0°Caverage air temperature
- 11%protected areas
- 0.0km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 28% Forest
- 1% Cropland
- 37% Pasture
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
Okavango Delta: what you find on the way
- 1WaterfallsPopa Falls
- 15Rapids
- 2Boat rampsSeronga Boat Ramp, Seronga Harbour
- 16Ferry piers
- 1Marinas
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.6 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
Okavango Delta in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (1)
NamibiaWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q650872) · 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.
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Every summit in 3D: summit weather, the 0 °C line, huts and trails.Visit 
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