River
Sefid Rud
670 km from source to mouth · Iran.
IranFlows into Caspian Sea4th longest in Iran
In numbers
Length
670km
Average flow
310m³/s
Basin
13,450km²
Drop
1,761m
from 1,733 m to -28 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
670 km of river and 13 stops on the way: 7 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmZagros Mountainsat 1,733 m
- 533 kmQezel Uzantributary
- 539 kmShahrud Rivertributary
- 541 kmManjil15,630 people
- 541 kmManjīl15,630 people
- 541 kmDaryācheh-ye Sadd-e Sefīd Rūd23 km²
- 541 kmSefid-Rud Dam
- 541 kmPādegān-e Manjīl17,396 people
- 548 kmKhalīlābād10,504 people
- 562 kmRostamābād13,746 people
- 623 kmNiyaku Adobe Bridge
- 624 kmNiyaku Small Adobe Bridge
- 625 kmĀstāneh-ye Ashrafīyeh44,941 people
- 648 kmKīāshahr14,022 people
- 670 kmCaspian Seaat -28 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Iran
At the mouth it carries 314 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 8.0 seconds. It drops from 1,733 m to -28 m, 2.6 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 13,450 km², about the size of BS. 2.5 million people live in it. Highest water: from December to February; lowest: from June to September. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (18% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- Āstāneh-ye AshrafīyehLargest city on its banks · 44,941 people
- Sardar-e-Jangal Airport (RAS)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 30 km from the city
- On the water1 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Sefid Rud, month by month
Highest water: from December to February
Lowest water: from June to September. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 75 m³/s in the lowest month to 1,300 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
Sefid Rud: the basin in numbers
58,651 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 2.5millionpeople live in the basin
- 43/km²people per km²
- 1,769maverage altitude of the basin
- 402mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 10.5°Caverage air temperature
- 3%protected areas
- 1.8km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 1% Forest
- 14% Cropland
- 61% 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
Sefid Rud: what you find on the way
- 10Weirs
- 2Locks
- 1Waterfalls
- 1Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.3 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Sefid Rud 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
1mountain at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Daryācheh-ye Sadd-e Sefīd Rūdkm 56123km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (1)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Kūh-e Sheydā8.4 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
Sefid Rud in pictures




Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (3)
Also: Qezel Uzan, Shahrud River, Manjil River
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1430986) · 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.