Stream
Sofia River
328 km from source to mouth · Madagascar.
MadagascarFlows into Indian Ocean4th longest in Madagascar
In numbers
Length
328km
Average flow
1,000m³/s
Basin
28,295km²
Drop
644m
from 644 m to 0 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
328 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 kmSourceat 644 m
- 191 kmFarihy Sinja5.9 km²
- 204 kmAmparihy14 km²
- 246 kmBoriziny23,906 people
- 328 kmIndian Oceanat 0 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Madagascar
At the mouth it carries 1,043 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 2.4 seconds. It drops from 644 m to 0 m, 2.0 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 28,295 km², about the size of SB. 675,000 people live in it. Highest water: from February to March; lowest: from July to October. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- BorizinyLargest city on its banks · 23,906 people
- Amborovy Airport (MJN)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 142 km from the cityCar hire at TNR airport (Antananarivo)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
Sofia River, month by month
Highest water: from February to March
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 190 m³/s in the lowest month to 2,600 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
Sofia River: the basin in numbers
28,533 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 675,000people live in the basin
- 24/km²people per km²
- 512maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,471mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 23.5°Caverage air temperature
- 2%protected areas
- 0.3%covered by lakes
What covers the basin
- 12% Forest
- 11% 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
Sofia River: what you find on the way
- 2Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.1 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Sofia 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
- Farihy Sinjakm 1795.9km²
- Amparihykm 19014km²
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.
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q4785721) · 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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islands
Every island from the sea up: size, sea temperature, ferries and 3D.Coming soonVisit 
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Every river from source to sea: the journey, the flow and the basin in numbers.You are here
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Every canyon cut to scale: depth to the floor, rim and floor temperatures, trails and viewpoints.Coming soonVisit