River
Pčinja
128 km from source to mouth · North Macedonia and Serbia.
North Macedonia and SerbiaFlows into Vardar4th longest in North Macedonia
In numbers
Length
128km
Average flow
14m³/s
Basin
3,140km²
Drop
524m
from 736 m to 212 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
128 km of river and 4 stops on the way: 3 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 736 m
- 8 kmKriva Palanka20,820 people
- 32 kmRankovce4,071 people
- 72 kmKriva Rivertributary
- 105 kmSredno Konjari1,089 people
- 128 kmVardarat 212 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Serbia and North Macedonia
At the mouth it carries 14 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 179 seconds. It drops from 736 m to 212 m, 4.1 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 3,140 km², about the size of LU. 169,000 people live in it. Highest water: from November to December; lowest: August. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- Kriva PalankaLargest city on its banks · 20,820 people
- Skopje International Airport (SKP)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 65 km from the cityCar hire at SKP airport (Ilinden)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Pčinja, month by month
Highest water: from November to December
Lowest water: August. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 6.2 m³/s in the lowest month to 48 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
Pčinja: the basin in numbers
2,882 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 169,000people live in the basin
- 58/km²people per km²
- 772maverage altitude of the basin
- 552mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 9.6°Caverage air temperature
- 3%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 23% Forest
- 36% Cropland
- 27% Pasture
- 2% 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
Pčinja: what you find on the way
- 7Weirs
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Pčinja 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.
29mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (29)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Kalin Kamen12 km away1,884m
- Bandera12 km away1,824m
- Samar12 km away1,586m
- Straža12 km away1,547m
- Golemi Vrh14 km away1,488m
- Kiselička Čuka15 km away1,429m
- Osogovska Kitka6.3 km away1,328m
- Vrlom14 km away1,324m
21 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
Pčinja in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Vardar
Greece388 km180 m³/sTributaries (3)
Also: Kriva River, Kumanovska Reka, Petrošnica
Nearby
Rivers nearby
North Macedonia225 km28 m³/s32 km awayCrnaNorth Macedonia207 km37 m³/s40 km awayTreskaNorth Macedonia132 km2,300 m³/s34 km awayBlack Drin
Albania177 km50 m³/s111 km awayWhite DrinAlbania175 km56 m³/s111 km awayStrumica
Bulgaria114 km100 m³/s139 km awaySitnicaSerbia90 km95 m³/s137 km awayErenik
Kosovo51 km38 m³/s112 km awayWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q522077) · 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
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?
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