River
White Volta
640 km from source to mouth · Ghana and Burkina Faso.
Ghana and Burkina FasoFlows into Lake Volta4th longest in Ghana
In numbers
Length
640km
Average flow
250m³/s
Basin
400,000km²
Drop
249m
from 324 m to 75 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
640 km of river and 6 stops on the way: 2 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 324 m
- 22 kmTitao48,241 people
- 408 kmBéguédo21,894 people
- 621 kmRed Voltatributary
- 768 kmKulpawn Rivertributary
- 817 kmNasiatributary
- 845 kmZincha Lagoon0.3 km²
- 1,093 kmLake Voltaat 75 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
Headstream of the Volta River
At the mouth it carries 249 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 10 seconds. It drops from 324 m to 75 m, 0.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 400,000 km², about the size of PY. 8.9 million people live in it. Highest water: September; lowest: from January to April. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (22% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- TitaoLargest city on its banks · 48,241 people
- Ouagadougou Thomas Sankara International Airport (OUA)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 168 km from the cityCar hire at ACC airport (Accra)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water24 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From December to JanuaryThe best months to visit
White Volta, month by month
Highest water: September
Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from December to January.
From about 47 m³/s in the lowest month to 1,300 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
White Volta: the basin in numbers
111,518 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 8.9millionpeople live in the basin
- 80/km²people per km²
- 260maverage altitude of the basin
- 882mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 27.9°Caverage air temperature
- 10%protected areas
- 0.3%covered by lakes
- 1.9km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 22% Forest
- 19% Cropland
- 35% Pasture
- 2% 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
White Volta: what you find on the way
- 1Weirs
- 2Boat ramps
- 22Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.4 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
White Volta 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.
1lake on its wayLakeyas
1mountain at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Zincha Lagoonkm 8450.3km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (1)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Loisit Tanga14 km away359m
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
White Volta in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Nearby
Rivers nearby
Ghana1,352 km260 m³/s0 km awayOti RiverGhana900 km430 m³/s137 km awayRed VoltaGhana313 km23 m³/s218 km awayVolta RiverGhana1,500 km1,300 m³/s365 km awayKawa
Togo72 km46 m³/s239 km awayMono River
Benin467 km54 m³/s408 km awayOuémé RiverBenin480 km170 m³/s455 km awaySingouBurkina Faso311 km54 m³/s355 km awayWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q1259188) · 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 | 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
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