River
Wei River
818 km from source to mouth · China.
ChinaFlows into Yellow River
In numbers
Length
818km
Average flow
330m³/s
Basin
135,000km²
Drop
1,773m
from 2,099 m to 326 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
818 km of river and 19 stops on the way: 14 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmNiaoshu Mountainat 2,099 m
- 87 kmHualin16,103 people
- 93 kmYuanyang26,352 people
- 103 kmShandan24,235 people
- 111 kmWushan68,643 people
- 125 kmLuomen89,998 people
- 136 kmPan’an70,072 people
- 157 kmGangu Chengguanzhen103,589 people
- 158 kmXinxing97,483 people
- 165 kmLiufeng36,718 people
- 233 kmBeidao74,767 people
- 403 kmBaoji1,437,802 people
- 416 kmGuozhen85,415 people
- 567 kmXianyang1,034,081 people
- 576 kmFeng Hetributary
- 605 kmBa Rivertributary
- 610 kmJing Rivertributary
- 673 kmWeinan1,199,290 people
- 675 kmWeinan Weihe Grand Bridge
- 750 kmLuo Rivertributary
- 818 kmYellow Riverat 326 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces
At the mouth it carries 329 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 7.6 seconds. It drops from 2,099 m to 326 m, 2.2 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 135,000 km², about the size of GR. 32.8 million people live in it. Highest water: from September to October; lowest: from January to April. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (15% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- BaojiLargest city on its banks · 1,437,802 people
- Tianshui Maijishan Airport (THQ)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 128 km from the city
- On the water3 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From April to June and from September to OctoberThe best months to visit
Wei River, month by month
Highest water: from September to October
Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from April to June and from September to October.
From about 120 m³/s in the lowest month to 720 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
Wei River: the basin in numbers
135,139 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 32.8millionpeople live in the basin
- 243/km²people per km²
- 1,378maverage altitude of the basin
- 558mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 9.6°Caverage air temperature
- 3%protected areas
- 0.1%covered by lakes
- 1.5km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 16% Forest
- 40% Cropland
- 40% Pasture
- 6% 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
Wei River: what you find on the way
- 16Weirs
- 2Ferry piers
- 1Marinas
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
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
Wei River in pictures

Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Yellow RiverTributaries (6)
Also: Luo River, Jing River, Ba River, Feng He, Niutou River, Chishui River
In the same basin
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q847641) · 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.