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River

Yobe River

1,200 km from source to mouth · Nigeria and Niger.

NigeriaNigerNigeria and NigerFlows into Lake Chad3rd longest in Nigeria

Follow the riverMonth by month

SourceMouthGashua
The river and every tributary in its basin, drawn from RiverATLAS (CC BY 4.0).

In numbers

Length

1,200km

Average flow

15m³/s

Basin

148,000km²

Drop

841m

from 1,117 m to 276 m

Countries

2

The journey

From source to mouth

1,200 km of river and 12 stops on the way: 12 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.

1,117 m276 m
Sourceat 1,117 m0 km
Gwaram15,806 people305 km
Katagum10,602 people499 km
Gorgoram12,470 people583 km
Gashua125,817 people655 km
Geidam41,367 people805 km
Chétimari65,449 people935 km
Diffa56,437 people974 km
Lake Chadat 276 m1,200 km
02505007501,0001,200 km
  1. 0 kmSourceat 1,117 m
  2. 0 kmJos1,040,000 people
  3. 305 kmGwaram15,806 people
  4. 499 kmKatagum10,602 people
  5. 583 kmGorgoram12,470 people
  6. 655 kmGashua125,817 people
  7. 805 kmGeidam41,367 people
  8. 932 kmDamasak13,874 people
  9. 935 kmChétimari65,449 people
  10. 974 kmDiffa56,437 people
  11. 1,026 kmGueskérou37,836 people
  12. 1,108 kmAbadam1,503 people
  13. 1,122 kmBosso65,022 people
  14. 1,200 kmLake Chadat 276 m

Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.

River in Niger and Nigeria

At the mouth it carries 15 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 167 seconds. It drops from 1,117 m to 276 m, 0.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 148,000 km², about the size of BD. 25.2 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from January to April. It is heavily dammed: reservoirs can hold 100% of a year's flow.

Read more on Wikipedia

Where to start

Yobe River, month by month

Highest water: from August to September

Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from November to February.

0.4
22°0 mmJan
0.0
24°0 mmFeb
0.0
28°1 mmMar
0.2
31°9 mmApr
2.8
31°36 mmMay
11
30°67 mmJun
44
27°154 mmJul
93
26°205 mmAug
100
27°86 mmSep
82
28°14 mmOct
50
25°1 mmNov
11
22°0 mmDec
Water (estimated flow)Air (average) Rain (mm)Best months

From about 0.0 m³/s in the lowest month to 100 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

Yobe River: the basin in numbers

213,452 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.

DammedReservoirs can hold 100% of a year's flow: much of the river is a chain of lakes.
  • 25.2millionpeople live in the basin
  • 118/km²people per km²
  • 417maverage altitude of the basin
  • 456mmof rain a year (basin average)
  • 26.8°Caverage air temperature
  • 8%protected areas
  • 0.5%covered by lakes
  • 3.5km³held in reservoirs

What covers the basin

  • 48% Cropland
  • 17% 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.

Along the river

Yobe River: what you find on the way

  • 18Dams
  • 36Weirs

From OpenStreetMap, within 2.6 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.

From space

The source and the mouth, seen from orbit

Yobe River: satellite view of the source
The source14 km across
Yobe River: satellite view of the mouth
The mouth63 km across

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

Yobe River in pictures

Beautiful boat in River Yobe, Bade town, Gashua
Serleh · CC BY-SA 4.0
Couché du soleil sur la Komadougou
MAHAMADOU ALPHA ISSIFOU Omar · CC BY-SA 4.0
Distant view of river Yobe
Serleh · CC BY-SA 4.0
Rive de la Komadougou 1
MAHAMADOU ALPHA ISSIFOU Omar · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tributaries

Where it flows, and what flows into it

Tributaries (2)

Also: Komadugu Gana River, Ngalda River

Where these numbers come from

Name, length, placesWikidata (Q1199792) · CC0
Course, profile, basinRiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed from the source to the mouth given by Wikidata
FlowWaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Climate along the riverWorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Towns, bridges, damsWikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0
Along the river© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons

Every source and licence is on the data sources page.

The family

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