River
Sarysu
800 km from source to mouth · Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan7th longest in Kazakhstan
In numbers
Length
800km
Average flow
7.3m³/s
Basin
81,600km²
Drop
387m
from 511 m to 124 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
800 km of river and 3 stops on the way: 1 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmKazakh Uplandsat 511 m
- 37 kmZhangaarqa13,184 people
- 101 kmAtasutributary
- 420 kmKarakengirtributary
- 800 kmMouthat 124 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Kazakhstan
At the mouth it carries 7.3 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 342 seconds. It drops from 511 m to 124 m, 0.5 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 81,600 km², about the size of AE. 76,000 people live in it. Highest water, with the snowmelt: from April to May; lowest: from January to March and September. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- ZhangaarqaLargest city on its banks · 13,184 people
- Sary-Arka Airport (KGF)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 164 km from the cityCar hire at NQZ airport (Astana)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Sarysu, month by month
Highest water: from April to May
Lowest water: from January to March and September. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from December to March. Melting snow makes up much of its water. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 0.0 m³/s in the lowest month to 610 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
Sarysu: the basin in numbers
72,225 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 76,000people live in the basin
- 1/km²people per km²
- 493maverage altitude of the basin
- 211mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 4.1°Caverage air temperature
- 2%protected areas
- 0.2%covered by lakes
What covers the basin
- 1% Cropland
- 72% Pasture
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
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: Karakengir, Atasu
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Kazakhstan1,318 km130 m³/s65 km awayTalas RiverKazakhstan661 km170 m³/s258 km awayArys RiverKazakhstan378 km47 m³/s280 km awaySyr DaryaKazakhstan2,212 km700 m³/s485 km awayTurgai RiverKazakhstan825 km9.0 m³/s434 km awayChatkal River
Uzbekistan217 km130 m³/s468 km awayChirchiqUzbekistan154 km220 m³/s492 km awayWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q706980) · 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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