It begins at the border with Ethiopia, where the Dawa and Ganale Dorya rivers meet, and flows directly south to the Somali Sea, where it empties at the Goobweyn juncture.

Today, numerous ruins and abandoned towns throughout the interior of Somalia and the Horn of Africa are evidence of a once-booming inland trade network dating from the medieval period.

The urban centers of Mogadishu, Merca, Barawa, Kismayo and Hobyo and other respective ports became profitable trade outlets for commodities originating from the interior of the State.

[6] Over two centuries passed until German explorer Baron Karl Klaus von der Decken ascended on the lower reaches of the river on the small steamship Welf in 1863.

Native wildlife includes giraffes, cheetahs, lions, leopards, hyenas, buffalos, hippopotamus, crocodiles, oryx, gazelles, camels, ostriches, jackals, and Somali wild asses.