Bakoy River
The Bakoy or Bakoye River is a river in West Africa. It runs through Guinea and Mali and joins with the Bafing River to form the Sénégal River at Bafoulabé in the Kayes Region of western Mali. In Manding languages, Bakoye signifies 'white river', Bafing 'black river' and Baloué 'red river'.
The source of the Bakoy is at an elevation of in the granite Monts Ménien to the northwest of Siguiri in Guinea. The river flows north and forms part of the international border between Guinea and Mali. It then meanders across the Manding Plateau and joins its principal affluent, the Baloué, which rises to the west of Bamako. The Bakoy is in length and drains a basin of around. The river is seasonal with a maximum flow in September after the start of the West African Monsoon and almost no flow between January and June. The large year-to-year variation in the intensity of the monsoon gives rise to large changes in the discharge of the Bakoy River. For the exceptionally dry year of 1972, the average flow at the Oualia gauging station, upstream of Bafoulabé, was only while in 1958 the value was. The average flow over the period 1951-1978 was, corresponding to an annual discharge of. At Bafoulabé, the average discharge of the Bakoy is between a third and a half of that of the Bafing.