River
Tano River
400 km from source to mouth · Ivory Coast and Ghana.
Ivory Coast and GhanaFlows into Gulf of Guinea5th longest in Ivory Coast
In numbers
Length
400km
Average flow
150m³/s
Basin
16,250km²
Drop
328m
from 327 m to -1 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
400 km of river and 8 stops on the way: 4 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 327 m
- 0 kmTanoboase Sacred Grove
- 283 kmAtangwen Falls
- 329 kmNini Rivertributary
- 344 kmNougoua6,974 people
- 350 kmElubo23,952 people
- 350 kmNoé12,199 people
- 352 kmSaykro6,198 people
- 394 kmUnvaiye Lagoon3.4 km²
- 400 kmGulf of Guineaat -1 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Ghana
At the mouth it carries 150 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 17 seconds. It drops from 327 m to -1 m, 0.8 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 16,250 km², about the size of SZ. 1.4 million people live in it. Highest water: from June to July; lowest: from January to March. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- EluboLargest city on its banks · 23,952 people
- Takoradi Airport (TKD)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 118 km from the cityCar hire at ABJ airport (Abidjan)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From December to January and AugustThe best months to visit
Tano River, month by month
Highest water: from June to July
Lowest water: from January to March. Best months to visit: from December to January and August.
From about 49 m³/s in the lowest month to 290 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
Tano River: the basin in numbers
16,250 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 1.4millionpeople live in the basin
- 86/km²people per km²
- 196maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,520mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 26.2°Caverage air temperature
- 28%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 23% Forest
- 14% Cropland
- 1% Pasture
- 4% 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.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Tano 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.
1waterfall on the riverCascadyas
1lake on its wayLakeyas
5mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Waterfalls (1)
On the river, by Cascadyas
- Atangwen Fallskm 309
Cascadyas is coming soonOpen Cascadyas ↗
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Unvaiye Lagoonkm 4303.4km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (5)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Abima6.3 km away
- Adankawkaw15 km away
- Ampade4.8 km away
- Ajuasika9.9 km away
- Boyem9.8 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
Tano River in pictures

Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (1)
Also: Nini River
In the same basin
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q472715) · 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 | Cascadyas, Lakeyas, 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.