Vietnam / China 
In numbers.
30m
Height
54m³/s
Average flow
estimate
Jun–Sep
Best months
16MW
Water power
estimate
The water at Ban Gioc–Detian Falls, month by month
It roars from June to August.
The fullest months: from June to August. The thinnest: from November to April.
- 13 m³/sJan
- 9.3 m³/sFeb
- 16 m³/sMar
- 24 m³/sApr
- 66 m³/sMay
- 126 m³/sJun
- 140 m³/sJul
- 144 m³/sAug
- 102 m³/sSep
- 58 m³/sOct
- 28 m³/sNov
- 13 m³/sDec
From about 9.3 m³/s in the lowest month to 144 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from June to September.
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.
Waterfall
Ban Gioc–Detian Falls is a waterfall in Vietnam. The water falls 30 m over a front 200 m wide.
Getting there.
- Thị Trấn Thanh Nhậtnearest town · 20 km in a straight line
- Parking 670 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Baise (Bose) Bama Airport (AEB)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 99 km in a straight line
- From June to Septemberbest 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.
Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.
16 MW
About 54 m³/s falling 30 m: the power of the water as it drops.
- as much as 5.3 large wind turbines
- enough to power about 4,000 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.
N
2 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
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 49 m in 1.9 km. Here the river runs about 56 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 16viewpoints二级观瀑台, 三级观瀑台, 六号观景台 and 13 more
- —waymarked walking routes
- 5car parks
- —swimming spots
- —picnic sites
- 5toilets
- —information boards and visitor centres
- 1bus stops within 1 km
- 2other named waterfalls within 4 kmThác Bản Giốc
- 1caves
- —campsites
- 38hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmNhà Khách Đình Văn, Saigon Ban Gioc Resort, Ha Vuong and 35 more
- 9restaurants 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
- Thị Trấn Thanh Nhật20 km in a straight line
- Thị Trấn Trùng Khánh20 km in a straight line
- Sằng Uỷ25 km in a straight line
Weather
The weather, month by month.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon °C | 17 | 21 | 25 | 29 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 29 | 26 | 23 | 18 |
| Night °C | 7 | 10 | 13 | 18 | 21 | 23 | 24 | 23 | 21 | 17 | 13 | 8 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 39 | 24 | 54 | 74 | 165 | 244 | 224 | 226 | 137 | 78 | 44 | 28 |
| Wet days | 6 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 18 | 23 | 23 | 22 | 14 | 10 | 6 | 4 |
| Sun h/day | 1.3 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 3.9 | 4.4 | 3.9 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.5 | 3.2 | 3.5 | 2.3 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (385 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
Photos
Through visitors' eyes.
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.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 113% | 217% | 271% | 166% | 107% | 78% | 31% | 105% | 130% | 290% | 26% | 10% |
| 2021 | 8% | 234% | 50% | 157% | 81% | 89% | 77% | 66% | 84% | 188% | 68% | 27% |
| 2022 | 155% | 504% | 158% | 98% | 187% | 78% | 58% | 76% | 80% | 79% | 127% | 41% |
| 2023 | 37% | 216% | 57% | 119% | 43% | 115% | 63% | 110% | 127% | 83% | 85% | 62% |
| 2024 | 208% | 94% | 84% | 123% | 311% | 196% | 135% | 176% | 165% | 53% | 6% | 19% |
| 2025 | 11% | 127% | 25% | 74% | 167% | 149% | 112% | 114% | 232% | 219% | 127% | 99% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q983252) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| River flow and catchment | HydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Relief, river profile, 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Paths, viewpoints, parking | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX 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.
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