River
Shagan
264 km from source to mouth · Kazakhstan and Russia.
Kazakhstan and RussiaFlows into Ural River
In numbers
Length
264km
Average flow
7.7m³/s
Basin
7,530km²
Drop
72m
from 95 m to 23 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
264 km of river and 3 stops on the way: 2 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 95 m
- 34 kmTashla6,651 people
- 247 kmOral330,000 people
- 257 kmDerkultributary
- 264 kmUral Riverat 23 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Russia and Kazakhstan, tributary to the Ural
At the mouth it carries 7.7 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 325 seconds. It drops from 95 m to 23 m, 0.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 7,530 km², about the size of PR. 3.1 million people live in it. Highest water, with the snowmelt: from April to June; lowest: from December to March. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (33% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- OralLargest city on its banks · 330,000 people
- Manshuk Mametova International Airport (URA)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 13 km from the cityCar hire at NQZ airport (Astana)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Shagan, month by month
Highest water: from April to June
Lowest water: from December to March. 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 30 m³/s in the lowest month to 1,600 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
Shagan: the basin in numbers
179,099 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 3.1millionpeople live in the basin
- 18/km²people per km²
- 283maverage altitude of the basin
- 349mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 3.4°Caverage air temperature
- 1%protected areas
- 0.4%covered by lakes
- 3.3km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 6% Forest
- 37% Cropland
- 43% 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
Shagan: what you find on the way
- 2Weirs
- 2Ferry piers
- 4River beaches
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.6 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
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
Shagan in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Ural RiverKazakhstan2,428 km400 m³/sTributaries (5)
Also: Bashkirka, Talovaya, Derkul, Maly Shagan, Gryaznushka
In the same basin
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Russia594 km50 m³/s240 km awaySakmaraRussia798 km140 m³/s263 km awayBig UzenKazakhstan650 km34 m³/s268 km awayMaly UzenKazakhstan638 km8.5 m³/s277 km awayUil RiverKazakhstan800 km2.0 m³/s299 km awayKamaRussia1,805 km4,100 m³/s474 km awayVyatkaRussia1,314 km890 m³/s491 km awayUfaRussia918 km390 m³/s498 km awayWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1111259) · 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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