Tigris

The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great

river

s that define

Mesopotamia

, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the

Armenian Highlands

through the

Syrian

and

Arabian Desert

s, and empties into the Persian Gulf.

Geography

The Tigris is 1,750 km long, rising in the Taurus Mountains of eastern

Turkey

about 25 km southeast of the city of Elazig and about 30 km from the headwaters of the Euphrates. The river then flows for 400 km through Southeastern Turkey before becoming part of the Syria-Turkey border. This stretch of 44 km is the only part of the river that is located in Syria. Some of its affluences are Garzan, Anbarçayi, Batman, and the Great 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 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 to form the Shatt-al-Arab. According to

Pliny

and other ancient historians, the Euphrates originally had its outlet into the sea separate from that of the Tigris.

Baghdad

, the capital of

Iraq

, stands on the banks of the Tigris. The port city of

Basra

straddles the Shatt al-Arab. In ancient times, many of the great cities of

Mesopotamia

stood on or near the Tigris, drawing water from it to irrigate the civilization of the

Sumer

ians. Notable Tigris-side cities included Nineveh,

Ctesiphon

, and Seleucia, while the city of

Lagash

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

.

General Francis Rawdon Chesney hauled two steamers overland through Syria in 1836 to explore the possibility of an overland and river route to India. One steamer, the ''Tigris'', was wrecked in a storm which sank and killed twenty. Chesney proved the river navigable to powered craft. In 1855, a convoy of rafts carrying antiquities from

Victor Place's

expedition to Khorsabad,

Rawlinson

's to Kuyunjik and Fresnel's to

Babylon

was sunk by local tribes near Al-Qurnah. Later, the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company was established in 1861 by the Lynch Brothers trading company, who had two steamers in service. By 1908 ten steamers were on the river. Tourists boarded steam yachts to venture inland as this was the first age of archaeological tourism, and the sites of

Ur

and

Ctesiphon

became popular with European travellers.

In the First World War, during the British conquest of Ottoman

Mesopotamia

, Indian and Thames River paddlers were used to supply General Charles Townsend's army, in the Siege of Kut and the Fall of Baghdad (1917). The Tigris Flotilla included vessels Clio, Espiegle, Lawrence, Odin, armed tug Comet, armed launches Lewis Pelly, Miner, Shaitan, Sumana, and sternwheelers Muzaffari/Muzaffar. These were joined by Royal Navy Fly-class gunboats Butterfly, Cranefly, Dragonfly, Mayfly, Sawfly, Snakefly, and Mantis, Moth, and Tarantula.

After the war, river trade declined in importance during the 20th century as the Basra-Baghdad-Mosul

railway

, a previously unfinished portion of the Baghdad Railway, was completed and roads took over much of the freight traffic.

Etymology

The Ancient Greek form ''Tigris'' () meaning "

tiger

" (if treated as Greek), was adapted from Old Persian ''Tigrā'', itself from Elamite ''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 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

(compare Hebrew ''Ḥîddeqel'',

Syriac

''Deqlaṯ'',

Arabic

''Dijlah'').

Another name for the Tigris used in Middle Persian was ''Arvand Rud'', literally "swift river". Today, however, ''Arvand Rud'' (New Persian: ) refers to the

confluence

of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, known in Arabic as the ''Shatt al-Arab''. In

Kurdish

, 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.

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. Mosul Dam is the largest dam in Iraq.

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

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

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

,

Tikrit

,

Samarra

, and

Baghdad

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 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 and Tašmišu, one of the three gods spat out of Kumarbi's mouth onto Mount Kanzuras. Later he colluded with

Anu

and the Teshub to destroy Kumarbi ( The Kumarbi Cycle).

The Tigris appears twice in the Old Testament. First, in the

Book of Genesis

, 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, 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.

The river featured on the

coat of arms of Iraq

from 1932–1959.

See also

*

Assyria

* Cradle of civilization
* Ilisu Dam Campaign campaign against a dam on Tigris in Turkey
* List of places in Iraq
* Wildlife of Iraq

Notes

External links

Livius.org: Tigris
*

Managing the Tigris and Euphrates WatershedBibliography on Water Resources and International Law
Peace Palace Library


*Old maps of the Tigris, Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, The

National Library of Israel

{{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