Skip to content
Cascadyas
EN

Central African Republic Central African Republic Waterfall

Chutes de Boali

A 120 m drop.

When to go

Boali waterfalls - CAR's only power plant (4112150917)
The EITI from Oslo, Norway · CC BY-SA 2.0

In numbers.

120m

Height

74m³/s

Average flow

estimate

Jul–Oct

Best months

87MW

Water power

estimate

The water at Chutes de Boali, month by month

It roars from July to October.

The fullest months: from July to October. The thinnest: from December to March.

  1. 15 m³/sJan
  2. 20 m³/sFeb
  3. 46 m³/sMar
  4. 62 m³/sApr
  5. 84 m³/sMay
  6. 108 m³/sJun
  7. 151 m³/sJul
  8. 163 m³/sAug
  9. 159 m³/sSep
  10. 172 m³/sOct
  11. 93 m³/sNov
  12. 38 m³/sDec
high water best months to go

From about 15 m³/s in the lowest month to 172 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from July to October.

Estimate: the timing comes from rain, snowmelt and evaporation (NASA POWER, 1991–2020); the amounts from the river model of HydroATLAS (WaterGAP, 1971–2000). Dams upstream can change the real flow.

Chutes de Boali is a waterfall in Central African Republic. The water falls 120 m over a front 250 m wide.

Getting there.

  • Boalinearest town · 12 km in a straight line
  • Parking 150 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
  • Bangui M'Poko International Airport (BGF)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 74 km in a straight line
  • From July to Octoberbest months to go (estimate)

Plan your visit

Stay, explore and get there

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.

How big is it?

How big it really is.

120 mChutesde Boali1.8 ma person93 mStatue ofLiberty96 mBig Ben139 mGreat Pyramid

Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.

87 MW

About 74 m³/s falling 120 m: the power of the water as it drops.

  • as much as 29 large wind turbines
  • enough to power about 21,800 homes, if it were all turned into electricity

Power of falling water = density × gravity × flow × height. Average flow and height as shown above; an estimate.

Seen from the sky.

8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.

Chutes de Boali seen from above (Sentinel-2) N 2 km

Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

The Mbali through the falls
400 m450 mChutes de Boali-1.5 km-1 km-0.5 km0+0.5 km+1 km+1.5 km← upstreamdownstream →

The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.

Around the falls the river drops 97 m in 3.5 km.

What is around.

  • —viewpoints
  • —waymarked walking routes
  • 1car parks
  • —swimming spots
  • —picnic sites
  • —toilets
  • —information boards and visitor centres
  • —bus stops within 1 km
  • —other named waterfalls within 4 km
  • —caves
  • —campsites
  • 1hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmChutes de Boali
  • —restaurants and cafés within 3 km

Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

Towns nearby

  • Boali12 km in a straight line

Weather

The weather, month by month.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Afternoon °C353633323130292929293133
Night °C202223222222212121212120
Rain & snow (mm)642101106138161217203193222637
Wet days261620242427292726123
Sun h/day8.77.66.76.86.65.95.14.85.86.27.58.4

Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (461 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.

Photos

Through visitors' eyes.

Amont des Chutes de Boali
Zakalingba · CC0
Chute boali
Kondotikodro · CC BY-SA 4.0
Chute de Boaoli 01
Kondotikodro · CC BY-SA 4.0

Recent years

Wet years and dry years

Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
20200%24%266%218%151%95%248%178%146%116%113%235%
2021793%18%138%79%110%122%101%141%133%118%165%164%
202210%5%93%68%181%96%127%135%140%190%273%68%
202337%71%78%115%115%78%133%126%175%122%946%218%
20245%5%102%83%135%144%60%120%96%141%101%4,977%
202520%100%47%162%77%142%142%72%76%88%171%218%

130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual

About these numbers

Names, height, width, riverWikidata (Q22501890) · CC0
River flow and catchmentHydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0
ClimateNASA POWER, 1991–2020
Relief, river profile, 3D modelCopernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
Paths, viewpoints, parking© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons

Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.

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.