River

Red Volta

313 km from source to mouth · Ghana and Burkina Faso.

Ghana and Burkina FasoFlows into White Volta5th longest in Ghana

Follow the river Month by month

SourceMouth

The river and every tributary in its basin, drawn from RiverATLAS (CC BY 4.0).

In numbers

Length

313km

Average flow

23m³/s

Basin

12,111km²

Drop

152m

from 301 m to 149 m

Countries

The journey

From source to mouth

313 km of river and 0 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.

301 m149 m

Sourceat 301 m0 km

White Voltaat 149 m313 km

0100200313 km

0 kmSourceat 301 m
313 kmWhite Voltaat 149 m

Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.

River in Burkina Faso and Ghana

At the mouth it carries 23 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 109 seconds. It drops from 301 m to 149 m, 0.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 12,111 km², about the size of QA. 6.9 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from January to April. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (49% of a year's flow).

Where to start

NaleriguLargest city on its banks · 17,440 people
Yakubu Tali International Airport (TML)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 121 km from the cityCar hire at ACC airport (Accra)Discover Cars · Affiliate link
From December to JanuaryThe best months to visit

Red Volta, month by month

Highest water: from August to September

Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from December to January.

26°1 mmJan

28°3 mmFeb

31°11 mmMar

31°37 mmApr

30°84 mmMay

150

28°116 mmJun

280

26°175 mmJul

460

26°235 mmAug

480

26°161 mmSep

330

28°46 mmOct

130

28°4 mmNov

26°3 mmDec

Water (estimated flow)Air (average) Rain (mm)Best months

From about 17 m³/s in the lowest month to 480 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

Car hire at ACC airport (Accra)Discover CarsSee

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

Red Volta: the basin in numbers

56,903 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.

Heavily regulatedReservoirs can hold 49% of a year's flow: dams shape its seasons.

6.9millionpeople live in the basin
122/km²people per km²
297maverage altitude of the basin
752mmof rain a year (basin average)
28.1°Caverage air temperature
7%protected areas
0.5%covered by lakes
1.8km³held in reservoirs

What covers the basin

2% Forest
22% Cropland
23% Pasture
4% 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.

From space

The source and the mouth, seen from orbit

Red Volta: satellite view of the source — **The source**14 km across

Red Volta: satellite view of the mouth — **The mouth**33 km across

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

Red Volta in pictures

Kabore Tambi NP MS 10798 — Marco Schmidt [1] · CC BY-SA 3.0

Tributaries

Where it flows, and what flows into it

It flows into

White Volta

Ghana640 km250 m³/s

Tributaries (1)

White Volta

Ghana640 km250 m³/s

In the same basin

Volta River

Ghana1,500 km1,300 m³/s Black Volta

Ghana1,352 km260 m³/s Oti River

Ghana900 km430 m³/s Kawa

Togo72 km46 m³/s Singou

Burkina Faso311 km54 m³/s

Nearby

Rivers nearby

Black Volta

Ghana1,352 km260 m³/s218 km away Oti River

Ghana900 km430 m³/s262 km away Kawa

Togo72 km46 m³/s198 km away Singou

Burkina Faso311 km54 m³/s188 km away Mékrou River

Niger410 km29 m³/s418 km away Tapoa River

Niger260 km8.9 m³/s402 km away Sirba River

Niger350 km780 m³/s430 km away Sota River

Benin250 km46 m³/s458 km away

Where these numbers come from

Name, length, places	Wikidata (Q2083328) · 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

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