River
Shebelle River
1,130 km from source to mouth · Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Somalia, Ethiopia and EritreaFlows into Jubba River2nd longest in Somalia
In numbers
Length
1,130km
Average flow
68m³/s
Basin
194,000km²
Drop
379m
from 389 m to 10 m
Countries
3
The journey
From source to mouth
1,130 km of river and 6 stops on the way: 4 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmEthiopian Highlandsat 389 m
- 457 kmLuuq33,820 people
- 680 kmBaardheere42,240 people
- 828 kmBirbiris1.6 km²
- 898 kmRadiile1.7 km²
- 926 kmBu’aale17,475 people
- 1,027 kmJilib43,694 people
- 1,130 kmJubba Riverat 10 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in the Horn of Africa
At the mouth it carries 68 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 37 seconds. It drops from 389 m to 10 m, 0.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 194,000 km², about the size of SN. 7.4 million people live in it. Highest water: from May to June; lowest: from February to March and from August to September. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- JilibLargest city on its banks · 43,694 people
- From June to AugustThe best months to visit
Shebelle River, month by month
Highest water: from May to June
Lowest water: from February to March and from August to September. Best months to visit: from June to August.
From about 79 m³/s in the lowest month to 780 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
Shebelle River: the basin in numbers
214,441 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 7.4millionpeople live in the basin
- 34/km²people per km²
- 875maverage altitude of the basin
- 524mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 24.5°Caverage air temperature
- 13%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 1% Forest
- 5% Cropland
- 38% 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
Shebelle River: what you find on the way
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.6 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Shebelle 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.
2lakes on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (2)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Birbiriskm 8561.6km²
- Radiilekm 9281.7km²
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
Shebelle River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Jubba RiverSomalia1,658 km130 m³/sTributaries (4)
Also: Erer River, Fafen River, Wabe River, Galetti River
KenyaWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q141915) · 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 — 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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mountains
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waterfalls
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