River
Zala
138 km from source to mouth · Hungary.
HungaryFlows into Lake Balaton
In numbers
Length
138km
Average flow
6.0m³/s
Basin
5,737km²
Drop
90m
from 190 m to 100 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
138 km of river and 6 stops on the way: 3 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSzalafőat 190 m
- 13 kmNagyrákos Viaduct
- 24 kmZalalövő2,698 people
- 28 kmSaint Martin Bridge
- 49 kmZalaegerszeg61,898 people
- 82 kmStone Bridge
- 82 kmZalaszentgrót7,796 people
- 138 kmLake Balatonat 100 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Hungary
At the mouth it carries 6.0 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 417 seconds. It drops from 190 m to 100 m, 0.7 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 5,737 km², about the size of BN. 183,000 people live in it. Highest water: February, June and from November to December. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- ZalaegerszegLargest city on its banks · 61,898 people
- Hévíz–Balaton Airport (SOB)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 29 km from the cityCar hire at GRZ airport (Feldkirchen bei Graz)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Zala, month by month
Highest water: February, June and from November to December
Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 5.0 m³/s in the lowest month to 20 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
Zala: the basin in numbers
2,629 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 183,000people live in the basin
- 70/km²people per km²
- 178maverage altitude of the basin
- 687mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 10.1°Caverage air temperature
- 14%protected areas
- 1.0%covered by lakes
What covers the basin
- 29% Forest
- 42% Cropland
- 13% 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
Zala: what you find on the way
- 1Weirs
- 2MarinasKayak harbor
- 1River beachesKutyastrand
From OpenStreetMap, within 1.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Zala 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.
9mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (9)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Austrian-Slovenian-Hungarian tripoint14 km away387m
- Holzmannkogel14 km away393m
- Retzelberg14 km away368m
- Steinerberg12 km away336m
- Schneiderberg9.3 km away325m
- Jakobsberg10 km away324m
- Gotziberg13 km away286m
- Lujza-hegy13 km away
1 more on PeakyasOpen Peakyas ↗
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
Zala in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Romania
Serbia
Croatia
Germany
Moldova
AustriaNearby
Rivers nearby
SlovakiaWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q144928) · 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 | 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?
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