River
Wami River
545 km from source to mouth · Tanzania.
TanzaniaFlows into Indian Ocean3rd longest in Tanzania
In numbers
Length
545km
Average flow
60m³/s
Basin
43,946km²
Drop
1,257m
from 1,257 m to 0 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
545 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 1,257 m
- 254 kmKilosa91,889 people
- 473 kmWami Bridge
- 507 kmMvomero31,324 people
- 545 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 East-Tanzania
At the mouth it carries 60 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 42 seconds. It drops from 1,257 m to 0 m, 2.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 43,946 km², about the size of DK. 2.3 million people live in it. Highest water: April; lowest: from July to October. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- KilosaLargest city on its banks · 91,889 people
- Dodoma Airport (DOD)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 154 km from the cityCar hire at DAR airport (Dar es Salaam)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From June to OctoberThe best months to visit
Wami River, month by month
Highest water: April
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from June to October.
From about 25 m³/s in the lowest month to 110 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
Wami River: the basin in numbers
41,560 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 2.3millionpeople live in the basin
- 54/km²people per km²
- 901maverage altitude of the basin
- 829mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 22.4°Caverage air temperature
- 13%protected areas
What covers the basin
- 28% Forest
- 4% Cropland
- 47% 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.
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
Wami River in pictures


Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1106820) · 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 |
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.