River
Psel
717 km from source to mouth · Ukraine and Russia.
Ukraine and RussiaFlows into Dnieper6th longest in Ukraine
In numbers
Length
717km
Average flow
55m³/s
Basin
22,800km²
Drop
130m
from 183 m to 53 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
717 km of river and 24 stops on the way: 15 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmCentral Russian Uplandat 183 m
- 56 kmOboyan’14,000 people
- 177 kmSudzhatributary
- 248 kmOleshnyatributary
- 257 kmKovpakivskyi142,447 people
- 258 kmZarichnyi150,694 people
- 259 kmSumy265,758 people
- 259 kmSumkatributary
- 263 kmBasy3,400 people
- 267 kmNovi Basy7,299 people
- 362 kmVilshankatributary
- 404 kmHadyach23,480 people
- 412 kmHruntributary
- 415 kmSosnivka1,110 people
- 471 kmVelyki Sorochyntsi4,050 people
- 479 kmHrun-Tashantributary
- 501 kmShyshaky4,347 people
- 510 kmYaresky3,958 people
- 530 kmVelyka Bahachka5,488 people
- 549 kmBilotserkivka699 people
- 589 kmKhorol Rivertributary
- 606 kmHovtva417 people
- 622 kmZamozhne533 people
- 654 kmOmelnyktributary
- 675 kmRudkatributary
- 717 kmDnieperat 53 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Russia and Ukraine
At the mouth it carries 55 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 45 seconds. It drops from 183 m to 53 m, 0.2 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 22,800 km², about the size of BZ. 1.0 million people live in it. Highest water: from April to June; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- SumyLargest city on its banks · 265,758 people
- On the water8 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Psel, month by month
Highest water: from April to June
Lowest water: from December to March. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from January to February. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 24 m³/s in the lowest month to 250 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
Psel: the basin in numbers
22,782 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 1.0millionpeople live in the basin
- 45/km²people per km²
- 152maverage altitude of the basin
- 584mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 7.1°Caverage air temperature
- 1%protected areas
- 0.3%covered by lakes
What covers the basin
- 4% Forest
- 66% Cropland
- 10% 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
Psel: what you find on the way
- 7Weirs
- 1Boat ramps
- 1Ferry piers
- 12River beachesFKK and 11 more
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.0 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Psel 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.
0lakes on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (0)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
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
Psel in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
DnieperTributaries (25)
Also: Sudzha, Hovtva, Hrun-Tashan, Hrun, Sumka, Syrovatka, Budylka, Vilshanka, Legan, Liutenka, Rudka, Udava, Bagachka, Bakaj, Vepryk, Vorozhba, Hnylycya, Oleshnya, Omelnyk, Ribitsya, Savraj, Ilek, Pena, Manzheliia
In the same basin
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1133871) · 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 |
| Our other atlases | Lakeyas — 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?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.


