River
Tambo River
159 km from source to mouth · Peru.
PeruFlows into Ucayali River
In numbers
Length
159km
Average flow
3,500m³/s
Basin
135,000km²
Drop
98m
from 305 m to 207 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
159 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 305 m
- 0 kmEne Rivertributary
- 1 kmPerené Rivertributary
- 155 kmAtalaya16,700 people
- 159 kmUcayali Riverat 207 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
Left headwater of the Ucayali River in Peru
At the mouth it carries 3,525 m³/s on average: 1.4 Olympic pools every second. It drops from 305 m to 207 m, 0.6 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 135,000 km², about the size of GR. 3.1 million people live in it. Highest water: from January to March; lowest: from July to September. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- AtalayaLargest city on its banks · 16,700 people
- Francisco Carle Airport (JAU)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 221 km from the cityCar hire at LIM airport (Lima)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water4 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Tambo River, month by month
Highest water: from January to March
Lowest water: from July to September. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 1,100 m³/s in the lowest month to 6,600 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
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The basin
Tambo River: the basin in numbers
131,974 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 3.1millionpeople live in the basin
- 24/km²people per km²
- 3,395maverage altitude of the basin
- 995mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 10.4°Caverage air temperature
- 12%protected areas
- 0.4%covered by lakes
- 0.8km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 31% Forest
- 5% Cropland
- 35% Pasture
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
Tambo River: what you find on the way
- 3Ferry piersAtalaya
- 1Marinas
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Tambo 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.
6mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (6)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Cerros Shanquireni8.3 km away
- Cerro Puerto Prado3.0 km away
- Cerro Puerto Ocopa11 km away
- Cerro Caperusilla7.0 km away
- Cerro Soroñiato11 km away
- Cerro Santa Cruz7.2 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
Tambo River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Ucayali RiverPeru1,460 km12,600 m³/sIn the same basin
Brazil6,400 km209,000 m³/sRio NegroBrazil2,250 km30,000 m³/sMadeira RiverBrazil1,450 km31,200 m³/sMarañón RiverPeru1,737 km16,700 m³/sJapurá RiverBrazil2,820 km13,900 m³/sXingu RiverBrazil1,640 km9,700 m³/sMamoré RiverBrazil1,930 km11,600 m³/sJuruá RiverBrazil3,100 km4,800 m³/sTapajós RiverBrazil1,930 km13,000 m³/sPutumayo RiverBrazil1,610 km7,000 m³/sWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1480564) · 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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