River
Ruo Shui
630 km from source to mouth · China.
ChinaFlows into Juyan Lake
In numbers
Length
630km
Average flow
49m³/s
Basin
78,600km²
Drop
1,972m
from 2,870 m to 898 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
630 km of river and 1 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmQilian Mountainsat 2,870 m
- 360 kmHexi Xinhu1.0 km²
- 630 kmJuyan Lakeat 898 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in the People's Republic of China
At the mouth it carries 49 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 51 seconds. It drops from 2,870 m to 898 m, 3.1 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 78,600 km², about the size of CZ. 1.7 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from December to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- Dalain HobLargest city on its banks · 16,927 people
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Ruo Shui, month by month
Highest water: from August to September
Lowest water: from December to March. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from December to February. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 3.9 m³/s in the lowest month to 180 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
Ruo Shui: the basin in numbers
60,561 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 1.7millionpeople live in the basin
- 29/km²people per km²
- 2,462maverage altitude of the basin
- 202mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 2.5°Caverage air temperature
- 7%protected areas
- 1%glaciers
- 20%permafrost
What covers the basin
- 6% Cropland
- 53% Pasture
- 1% Towns and cities
- 1% Ice
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
Ruo Shui: what you find on the way
- 1Weirs
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Ruo Shui 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
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Hexi Xinhukm 2791.0km²
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
Ruo Shui in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (1)
Also: Beida He
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1048648) · 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?
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