River · Dominican Republic
Yaque del Norte
The Yaque del Norte is the longest river in the Dominican Republic. It springs from the high Cordillera Central, crosses the fertile Cibao valley and ends in the Atlantic Ocean at the Bahía de Monte Cristi.
Picture credit: Starus (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Jos1950 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Jos1950 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Yaque del Norte?
The river starts here: Cordillera Central, near the highest peaks of the Dominican Republic.
It ends in the Bahía de Monte Cristi, Atlantic Ocean.
Countries on the river: the Dominican Republic.
The story behind it
High in the mountains the Yaque del Norte is icy and full of boulders, and around the town of Jarabacoa people ride rubber rafts down its rapids, shouting as the cold spray hits them. Further down the valley opens out and the river becomes the great water carrier of the Cibao, feeding fields of rice, bananas, tobacco and cocoa. A large dam stores part of its flow so that farmers still have water in the dry months. Santiago, the second city of the country, stands on its bank. Near the sea the river slows, splits and sinks into mangrove channels and salt flats where flamingos and pelicans feed. When hurricanes sweep across the island, the Yaque swells alarmingly and can flood the lowland towns within hours.
Questions children ask
How long is the Yaque del Norte?
The Yaque del Norte is about 296 km long. It is the longest river of the Dominican Republic and one of the longest on the whole island of Hispaniola.
Which country does the Yaque del Norte flow through?
The Yaque del Norte runs only through the Dominican Republic. It crosses the north-west of the country from the central mountains to the Atlantic coast.
Where does the Yaque del Norte flow into the sea?
It flows into the Bahía de Monte Cristi on the Atlantic Ocean. The mouth is surrounded by mangroves and salt flats that are protected as a national park.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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