The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great
river
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...
s that define
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
, the other being the
Euphrates
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers''). Originating in Turkey, the Eup ...
. The river flows south from the mountains of the
Armenian Highlands through the
Syrian and
Arabian Deserts, and empties into the
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...
.
Geography
The Tigris is 1,750 km (1,090 mi) long, rising in the
Taurus Mountains
The Taurus Mountains ( Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar'') are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean coastal region from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğird ...
of eastern
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
about 25 km (16 mi) southeast of the city of
Elazığ
Elazığ () is a city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey, and the administrative centre of Elazığ Province and Elazığ District. It is located in the uppermost Euphrates valley. The plain on which the city extends has an altitude of . ...
and about 30 km (20 mi) from the headwaters of the Euphrates. The river then flows for 400 km (250 mi) through Southeastern Turkey before becoming part of the
Syria-Turkey border. This stretch of 44 km (27 mi) is the only part of the river that is located in Syria.
Some of its affluences are Garzan, Anbarçayi,
Batman, and the
Great
Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements
* Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size
* Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent
People
* List of people known as "the Great"
*Artel Great (born ...
and the
Little Zab.
Close to its confluence with the Euphrates, the Tigris splits into several channels. First, the artificial
Shatt al-Hayy branches off, to join the Euphrates near
Nasiriyah. Second, the Shatt al-Muminah and
Majar al-Kabir branch off to feed the
Central Marshes. Further downstream, two other
distributary channels branch off (the
Al-Musharrah and
Al-Kahla), to feed the
Hawizeh Marshes
The Hawizeh Marshes are a complex of marshes that straddle the Iran–Iraq border. The marshes are fed by two branches of the Tigris River (the Al-Musharrah and Al-Kahla) in Iraq and the Karkheh River in Iran. The Hawizeh marsh is critical ...
. The main channel continues southwards and is joined by the
Al-Kassarah, which drains the Hawizeh Marshes. Finally, the Tigris joins the Euphrates near
al-Qurnah
Al-Qurnah (Kurnah or Qurna, meaning connection/joint in Arabic) is a town in southern Iraq about 74 km northwest of Basra, that lies within the conglomeration of Nahairat. Qurna is located at the confluence point of the Tigris and Euphrates riv ...
to form the
Shatt-al-Arab
The Shatt al-Arab ( ar, شط العرب, lit=River of the Arabs; fa, اروندرود, Arvand Rud, lit=Swift River) is a river of some in length that is formed at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the town of al-Qurnah in ...
. According to
Pliny
Pliny may refer to:
People
* Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), ancient Roman nobleman, scientist, historian, and author of ''Naturalis Historia'' (''Pliny's Natural History'')
* Pliny the Younger (died 113), ancient Roman statesman, orator, w ...
and other ancient historians, the Euphrates originally had its outlet into the sea separate from that of the Tigris.
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
, the capital of
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
, stands on the banks of the Tigris. The port city of
Basra
Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...
straddles the Shatt al-Arab. In ancient times, many of the great cities of
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
stood on or near the Tigris, drawing water from it to irrigate the civilization of the
Sumerians. Notable Tigris-side cities included
Nineveh,
Ctesiphon, and
Seleucia, while the city of
Lagash
Lagash (cuneiform: LAGAŠKI; Sumerian: ''Lagaš''), was an ancient city state located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, about east of the modern town of Ash Shatrah, Iraq. Lagash (modern Al-Hiba) w ...
was irrigated by the Tigris via a canal dug around 2900 B.C.
Navigation
The Tigris has long been an important transport route in a largely desert country. Shallow-draft vessels can go as far as Baghdad, but rafts are needed for transport upstream to
Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...
.
Etymology
The
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
form ''Tigris'' () is an alternative form of ''Tígrēs'' (), which was adapted from
Old Persian (t-i-g-r-a /Tigrā/), itself from
Elamite
Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was used in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite works disappear from the archeological record ...
''Tigra'', itself from
Sumerian (''Idigna'' or ''Idigina'', probably derived from *''id (i)gina'' "running water"). The Sumerian term, which can be interpreted as "the swift river", contrasts the Tigris to its neighbour, the Euphrates, whose leisurely pace caused it to deposit more
silt
Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel ...
and build up a higher bed than the Tigris. The Sumerian form was borrowed into
Akkadian as ''Idiqlat'' and from there into the other
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...
(compare
Hebrew ''Ḥîddeqel'',
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
''Deqlaṯ'',
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
''Dijlah'').
Another name for the Tigris used in
Middle Persian
Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle ...
was ''Arvand Rud'', literally "swift river". Today, however, ''Arvand Rud'' (
New Persian
New Persian ( fa, فارسی نو), also known as Modern Persian () and Dari (), is the current stage of the Persian language spoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now in Greater Iran and surroundings. It is conventionally divided into thr ...
: ) refers to the
confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, known in Arabic as the ''
Shatt al-Arab''. In
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
, it is known as ''Ava Mezin'', "the Great Water".
The name of the Tigris in languages that have been important in the region:
Management and water quality
The Tigris is heavily dammed in Iraq and Turkey to provide water for irrigating the arid and semi-desert regions bordering the river valley. Damming has also been important for averting floods in Iraq, to which the Tigris has historically been notoriously prone following April melting of snow in the Turkish mountains.
Mosul Dam is the largest dam in Iraq.
Recent Turkish damming of the river has been the subject of some controversy, for both its environmental effects within Turkey and its potential to reduce the flow of water downstream.
Water from both rivers is used as a means of pressure during conflicts.
In 2014 a major breakthrough in developing consensus between multiple stakeholder representatives of Iraq and Turkey on a Plan of Action for promoting exchange and calibration of data and standards pertaining to Tigris river flows was achieved. The consensus which is referred to as the "Geneva Consensus On Tigris River" was reached at a meeting organized in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
by the think tank
Strategic Foresight Group.
In February 2016, the
United States Embassy in Iraq as well as the
Prime Minister of Iraq Haider al-Abadi
Haider Jawad Kadhim al-Abadi ( ar, حيدر جواد كاظم العبادي; born 25 April 1952) is an Iraqi politician who was Prime Minister of Iraq from September 2014 until October 2018. Previously he served as Minister of Communication fro ...
issued warnings that
Mosul Dam could collapse. The United States warned people to evacuate the floodplain of the Tigris because between 500,000 and 1.5 million people were at risk of drowning due to
flash flood if the dam collapses, and that the major Iraqi cities of
Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...
,
Tikrit
Tikrit ( ar, تِكْرِيت ''Tikrīt'' , Syriac: ܬܲܓܪܝܼܬܼ ''Tagrīṯ'') is a city in Iraq, located northwest of Baghdad and southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. , it h ...
,
Samarra, and
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
were at risk.
Religion and mythology
In
Sumerian mythology, the Tigris was created by the god
Enki, who filled the river with flowing water.
In
Hittite and
Hurrian
The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern ...
mythology, ''Aranzah'' (or ''Aranzahas'' in the
Hittite nominative form) is the Hurrian name of the Tigris River, which was deified. He was the son of
Kumarbi and the brother of
Teshub
Teshub (also written Teshup, Teššup, or Tešup; cuneiform ; hieroglyphic Luwian , read as ''Tarhunzas'';Annick Payne (2014), ''Hieroglyphic Luwian: An Introduction with Original Texts'', 3rd revised edition, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, p. ...
and
Tašmišu, one of the three gods spat out of Kumarbi's mouth onto
Mount Kanzuras. Later he colluded with
Anu and the
Teshub
Teshub (also written Teshup, Teššup, or Tešup; cuneiform ; hieroglyphic Luwian , read as ''Tarhunzas'';Annick Payne (2014), ''Hieroglyphic Luwian: An Introduction with Original Texts'', 3rd revised edition, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, p. ...
to destroy Kumarbi (
The Kumarbi Cycle).
The Tigris appears twice in the
Old Testament. First, in the
Book of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...
, it is the third of the
four rivers branching off the river issuing out of the
Garden of Eden.
The second mention is in the
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th century BC setting. Ostensibly "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon", it combines a prophecy of history with an eschatology ...
, wherein
Daniel states he received one of his visions "when I was by that great river the Tigris".
The Tigris River is also mentioned in Islam. The tomb of
Imam Ahmad Bin Hanbal and
Syed Abdul Razzaq Jilani is in Baghdad and the flow of Tigris restricts the number of visitors.
Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the
Baháʼí Faith
The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh in the 19th century, it initially developed in Iran and parts of the ...
, also wrote ''
The Hidden Words'' around 1858 while he walked along the banks of the Tigris river during his exile in Baghdad.
The river featured on the
coat of arms of Iraq from 1932–1959.
See also
*
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
*
Cradle of civilization
*
Ilisu Dam Campaign campaign against a dam on Tigris in Turkey
*
List of places in Iraq
This is a list of places in Iraq. Governorates of Iraq lists the governorates, and Districts of Iraq lists the subdivisions of those governorates.
Modern cities and towns
* Afak (عفك)
* Al `Awja (العوجا)
*Baghdad (ܒܓܕܐܕ) (ب ...
*
Wildlife of Iraq The wildlife of Iraq includes its flora and fauna and their natural habitats. Iraq has multiple biomes which include the mountainous region in north to the wet marshlands along the Euphrates river. The western part of the country comprises mainly de ...
References
External links
Livius.org: Tigris*
Managing the Tigris and Euphrates WatershedBibliography on Water Resources and International LawPeace Palace Library
*Old maps of the Tigris, Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, The
National Library of Israel
The National Library of Israel (NLI; he, הספרייה הלאומית, translit=HaSifria HaLeumit; ar, المكتبة الوطنية في إسرائيل), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; he, בית הספרים הלא� ...
{{Authority control
International rivers of Asia
Rivers of Iraq
Rivers of Kurdistan
Rivers of Syria
Rivers of Turkey
Mesopotamia
Upper Mesopotamia
Tur Abdin
Levant
Geography of Iraqi Kurdistan
Landforms of Elazığ Province
Landforms of Diyarbakır Province
Landforms of Batman Province
Landforms of Siirt Province
Landforms of Şırnak Province
Border rivers
Water and religion
Rivers in Mandaeism