In numbers
Length
138km
Average flow
70m³/s
Basin
2,920km²
Drop
781m
from 878 m to 97 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
138 km of river and 21 stops on the way: 13 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmMonte Rosa Massifat 878 m
- 36 kmVarallo5,427 people
- 42 kmQuarona3,558 people
- 48 kmBorgosesia10,967 people
- 53 kmSesseratributary
- 54 kmSerravalle Sesia4,656 people
- 56 kmGrignasco3,967 people
- 61 kmPrato Sesia1,578 people
- 64 kmRomagnano Sesia3,596 people
- 64 kmRomagnano Sesia railway bridge
- 65 kmGattinara8,001 people
- 67 kmGhemme3,499 people
- 76 kmCarpignano Sesia2,562 people
- 77 kmGhislarengo railway bridge
- 85 kmSesia Viaduct
- 85 kmSottopasso Sesia
- 87 kmpipeline bridge in Greggio
- 96 kmCervotributary
- 97 kmCaresanablot1,115 people
- 104 kmVercelli45,875 people
- 114 kmPalestro1,838 people
- 134 kmMarcovatributary
- 138 kmPoat 97 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Italy
At the mouth it carries 70 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 36 seconds. It drops from 878 m to 97 m, 5.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 2,920 km², about the size of LU. 351,000 people live in it. Highest water: November. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- VercelliLargest city on its banks · 45,875 people
- Milan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 42 km from the cityCar hire at MXP airport (Ferno)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe1 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Sesia, month by month
Highest water: November
Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 46 m³/s in the lowest month to 140 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
Sesia: the basin in numbers
2,842 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 351,000people live in the basin
- 123/km²people per km²
- 686maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,070mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 9.2°Caverage air temperature
- 5%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 46% Forest
- 38% Cropland
- 5% Pasture
- 8% 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
Sesia: what you find on the way
- 46WeirsRosolei, Barraggio Chiavica del Bosco, Diga di Palestro and 43 more
- 4Locks
- 10WaterfallsCascata d'Otro, Cascata del Tinaccio, Cascata degli sciocchi (Pissa di Quiic) and 7 more
- 1Rapids
- 1Boat ramps
- 3River beachesSpiaggia Naturista della Balangera, Hakuna Matata Beach, Ola Beach
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Sesia 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.
117mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (117)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Dufourspitze3.8 km away · prominence 2,165 m4,634m
- Lyskamm5.0 km away · prominence 379 m4,532m
- Zumsteinspitze3.1 km away · prominence 112 m4,563m
- Signalkuppe2.4 km away · prominence 98 m4,554m
- Parrotspitze2.2 km away · prominence 134 m4,434m
- Breithorn12 km away · prominence 438 m4,160m
- Ludwigshöhe2.5 km away · prominence 57 m4,341m
- Rimpfischhorn13 km away · prominence 647 m4,199m
109 more on PeakyasOpen Peakyas ↗
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
Sesia in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Po
Italy652 km1,500 m³/sTributaries (8)
Also: Cervo, Sessera, Marcova, Mastallone, Bona, Roggia Stura, Pascone, Strona di Valduggia
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1248298) · 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 | 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.
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