River
Sabine River
820 km from source to mouth · United States.
United StatesFlows into Sabine Lake
In numbers
Length
820km
Average flow
270m³/s
Basin
25,270km²
Drop
117m
from 117 m to 0 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
820 km of river and 11 stops on the way: 3 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 117 m
- 12 kmLake Tawakoni138 km²
- 70 kmLake Holbrook2.4 km²
- 183 kmLake Gladewater1.6 km²
- 185 kmGladewater6,432 people
- 204 kmKilgore13,470 people
- 244 kmFerguson Creek Reservoir0.8 km²
- 545 kmToledo Bend Reservoir600 km²
- 567 kmBurr's Ferry Bridge
- 732 kmDeweyville Swing Bridge
- 766 kmInterstate 10 Bridge
- 773 kmOrange19,347 people
- 820 kmSabine Lakeat 0 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Texas and Louisiana, United States
At the mouth it carries 271 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 9.2 seconds. It drops from 117 m to 0 m, 0.1 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 25,270 km², about the size of MK. 643,000 people live in it. Highest water: from December to February. It is heavily dammed: reservoirs can hold 121% of a year's flow.
Where to start
- OrangeLargest city on its banks · 19,347 people
- Jack Brooks Regional Airport (BPT)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 32 km from the cityCar hire at LCH airport (Lake Charles)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water20 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe1 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From March to April and from September to NovemberThe best months to visit
Sabine River, month by month
Highest water: from December to February
Best months to visit: from March to April and from September to November.
From about 90 m³/s in the lowest month to 490 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
Sabine River: the basin in numbers
25,661 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 643,000people live in the basin
- 26/km²people per km²
- 99maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,245mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 18.1°Caverage air temperature
- 1%protected areas
- 3.7%covered by lakes
- 10km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 68% Forest
- 16% Cropland
- 14% 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
Sabine River: what you find on the way
- 1WeirsLongview Big Sandy Dam
- 1RapidsMorgan Eddy
- 20Boat rampsUS 69 Sabine River Public Boat Ramp (TXDOT), FM 1804 Sabine River Public Boat Ramp (TXDOT), FM 14 Sabine River Public Boat Ramp (TXDOT) and 17 more
- 1River beachesMcFadden Landing
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.0 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Sabine 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.
5lakes on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (5)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Lake Tawakonikm 8138km²
- Lake Holbrookkm 482.4km²
- Lake Gladewaterkm 1271.6km²
- Ferguson Creek Reservoirkm 1690.8km²
- Toledo Bend Reservoirkm 377600km²
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
Sabine River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (2)
Also: Big Cow Creek, Lake Fork Creek
Nearby
Rivers nearby
United States1,140 km210 m³/s92 km awayBrazos RiverUnited States1,352 km240 m³/s197 km awayRed RiverUnited States2,189 km1,900 m³/s231 km awayColorado RiverUnited States1,387 km21,700 m³/s263 km awayAtchafalaya RiverUnited States270 km240 m³/s248 km awayMississippi RiverUnited States3,766 km12,700 m³/s448 km awayArkansas RiverUnited States2,364 km240 m³/s491 km awayNueces RiverUnited States507 km30 m³/s433 km awayWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q596106) · 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.
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