River
Reventazón River
145 km from source to mouth · Costa Rica.
Costa RicaFlows into Caribbean Sea2nd longest in Costa Rica
In numbers
Length
145km
Average flow
220m³/s
Basin
2,950km²
Drop
2,179m
from 2,188 m to 9 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
145 km of river and 5 stops on the way: 2 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 2,188 m
- 34 kmOrosi4,350 people
- 43 kmLake Cachí0.4 km²
- 58 kmTucurrique2,697 people
- 79 kmAtirro Rivertributary
- 102 kmReventazón Dam
- 145 kmCaribbean Seaat 9 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Costa Rica
At the mouth it carries 222 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 11 seconds. It drops from 2,188 m to 9 m, 15 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 2,950 km², about the size of LU. 451,000 people live in it. Highest water: July and December. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- OrosiLargest city on its banks · 4,350 people
- Tobías Bolaños International Airport (SYQ)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 36 km from the cityCar hire at SJO airport (San José)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From January to March, June and AugustThe best months to visit
Reventazón River, month by month
Highest water: July and December
Best months to visit: from January to March, June and August.
From about 89 m³/s in the lowest month to 290 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
Reventazón River: the basin in numbers
2,725 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 451,000people live in the basin
- 165/km²people per km²
- 1,077maverage altitude of the basin
- 3,297mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 20.4°Caverage air temperature
- 11%protected areas
- 0.1km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 76% Forest
- 3% Cropland
- 47% Pasture
- 8% 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
Reventazón River: what you find on the way
- 1WaterfallsCatarata
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Reventazón 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.
1lake on its wayLakeyas
7mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Lake Cachíkm 380.4km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (7)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Cerro de la Muerte8.4 km away3,451m
- Cerro Sákira6.8 km away
- Cerro Páramo10 km away
- Cerro Frío10 km away
- Cerro La Asunción7.6 km away
- Cerro Cuerisí14 km away
- Cerro Buena Vista10 km away
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
Reventazón River in pictures

Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (1)
Also: Atirro River
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q11997691) · 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 | Lakeyas, 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?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.