River
Ruvuma River
800 km from source to mouth · Tanzania and Mozambique.
Tanzania and MozambiqueFlows into Indian Ocean1st longest in Tanzania
In numbers
Length
800km
Average flow
480m³/s
Basin
150,000km²
Drop
756m
from 756 m to 0 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
800 km of river and 4 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 756 m
- 499 kmLugenda Rivertributary
- 501 kmUnity Bridge
- 555 kmBangala Rivertributary
- 741 kmLake Chidya6.7 km²
- 800 kmIndian Oceanat 0 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in the African Great Lakes region
At the mouth it carries 475 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 5.3 seconds. It drops from 756 m to 0 m, 0.9 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 150,000 km², about the size of BD. 2.8 million people live in it. Highest water: from March to April; lowest: from August to November. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- MadimbaLargest city on its banks · 12,507 people
- Mtwara Airport (MYW)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 18 km from the cityCar hire at POL airport (Pemba)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water4 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Ruvuma River, month by month
Highest water: from March to April
Lowest water: from August to November. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 290 m³/s in the lowest month to 6,600 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
Ruvuma River: the basin in numbers
155,316 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 2.8millionpeople live in the basin
- 18/km²people per km²
- 608maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,150mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 23.9°Caverage air temperature
- 32%protected areas
- 0.1%covered by lakes
What covers the basin
- 47% Forest
- 6% Cropland
- 47% Pasture
- 1% 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
Ruvuma River: what you find on the way
- 4Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Ruvuma 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
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Lake Chidyakm 7136.7km²
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.
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (2)
Also: Lugenda River, Bangala River
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q746779) · 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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