The headwaters of the Euphrates are the Murat and the Korasuyu (Karasu) in the Armenian Highland of Anatolia. They join to form the Euphrates at Keban, near Elazig, forming a deep gorge. The river breaks through the Taurus Mountains and descends to the ancient kingdom of Commagenes. With the Mediterranean only 100 miles to the west at this reach, the Euphrates continues south and southeast into a relatively barren part of Syria, where the cultivable floodplain is no more than a few miles wide. Ample rainfall in the northern reaches of both these tributaries allowed the creation of major cities in ancient times.
From its confluence with the Al-Khabur down to Abu Kamal, the Euphrates flows through a broad agricultural region. Below the border with Iraq, the river once again narrows to an alluvial strip between limestone escarpments. Below Hit, the river begins to widen and irrigation increases.
Just south of the river below Ar-Ramadi lie Lakes Al-Habbaniyah and Al-Milh, both of which are large depressions. At Al-Hindiyah the river splits into two branches, Al-Hillah and Al-Hindiyah, each of which, over the centuries, alternately has assumed importance. Below An-Nasiriyah the river flows into marshes and then joins the Tigris at Al-Qurnah to form the Shatt al-'Arab.
The Tigris, rising in a small mountain lake, Hazar Lake, southeast of Elazig, and fed by a number of small tributaries, drains a wide area of eastern Anatolia. After flowing beneath the impressive basalt walls of Diyarbakir, it receives the waters of the eastern Al-Khabur near the Syrian border at Cizre (Jazirhe-a-bin-Omar), entering Iraq a few miles beyond at Faysh Khabur.
Near Mosul the Tigris passes the ruins of two of the three ancient Assyrian capitals--Nineveh (Ninawa) and Calah (modern Nimrud)--on its left bank. The ruins of the third capital, Ashur (modern Ash-Sharqat), overlook the river from the right bank farther downstream, between the left-bank junctions with the Great Zab and the Little Zab. During flood time, in March and April, the two Zabs double the volume of the Tigris.
The Tigris reaches the alluvial plain near Samarra`, the capital of a great empire during the 'Abbasid period (AD 750-1258). In Baghdad and its environs, artificial embankments line the Tigris, as well as districts occasionally threatened by the Euphrates and the Diyala River, which joins the Tigris just below the capital. The Shatt al-Gharraf is the main line of the Tigris.
The regime of the Tigris and Euphrates depends most heavily upon winter rains and spring snowmelt in the Taurus and Zagros mountains. The Euphrates traverses a considerably greater distance than the Tigris from its mountain basin to the point where it meets the Mesopotamian alluvial plain at Ar-Ramadi. On its long, gently sloping route through Syria and northern Iraq, the Euphrates loses much of its velocity and receives only two tributaries, the Al-Balikh and the (western) Al-Khabur, both of them spring-fed and entering from the left. The Tigris, in contrast, flows down the edge of a long, multichanneled catchment basin and is fed by four strong tributaries, the Great Zab, Little Zab, Al-'Uzaym (Adhaim), and Diyala, all of which derive their water from snowmelt in Anatolian, Iranian, and Iraqi Kurdistan. The precipitous flow of its tributaries makes the Tigris more susceptible than the Euphrates to short-term flooding and brings its annual flood period a month earlier.
As it reaches the Mesopotamian alluvial plain above Samarra`, the Tigris is a bigger, faster, more silt-laden, and more unpredictable river than the Euphrates at the corresponding point, Al-Fallujah. This character is expressed in the Arabic name Dijla, meaning "Arrow." The mean annual discharge of the Tigris is estimated at 43,800 cubic feet (1,240 cubic meters) per second, and the silt load at approximately one ton per second. These estimates are roughly twice those calculated for the Euphrates. In flood time the two rivers together carry as much as three million tons of eroded material from the highlands in a single day.
The Tigris and Euphrates make habitable and productive one of the harshest environments in the world. The region has a continental subtropical climate, with extremes of heat in summer and cold in winter, as well as great diurnal variations. Rainfall is scanty. In the higher elevations, where the rivers have their upper courses, winter winds are light and variable. Much of the precipitation falls as snow, which can lie in some places for half the year. During winter, the mean temperature in the mountains is well below freezing, so that agriculture comes to a halt and communications are restricted. With the melting of the snow in spring, the rivers are in spate. The mounting volume of their waters is augmented in their middle courses by seasonal rainfall, which reaches its peak between March and May. In the lower courses of the rivers in the alluvial plain, rain can be torrential in winter but usually does not exceed 8 inches (200 millimeters). Rain is a welcome supplement to irrigation, which since ancient times has made possible the region's legendary agricultural richness.
In the Mesopotamian plain, the most characteristic climatic feature is the extreme heat of the summer, with daytime temperatures rising as high as 140 F (60 C). Often, there are drops of 40 F (22 C) from day to night. Humidity in most areas is as low as 15 percent. Dust storms, which occur throughout the year, are especially frequent in the summer. Most wind-borne dust consists of particles of clay and silt mixed with minute fragments of shell, which are from a remnant dune belt that has been formed from abandoned irrigated fields and dried-up marshes in the area between the two rivers. Only occasionally are there true sandstorms, bearing material from the western desert.
Oak, pistachio, and ash forests covered the mountains and foothills through which the upper Tigris and Euphrates pass. In the steppe zone between the mountains and the Tigris, some vegetation can flourish year-round, but the growing season in most nonirrigated areas is quite brief; the wildflowers and other plants that appear in spring die off in the heat of May and June. In the driest zones, camel thorn and prosopis are the dominant shrubs. The densest communities of plants are to be found along the rivers and in the marshes. Various reeds and the narrow-leaved cattail are abundant, and the giant mardi reed, which reaches a height of up to 25 feet, has been used as a versatile construction material since antiquity. The Euphrates poplar and a species of willow grow in small belts beside the rivers and canals; the poplar provides strong timber for construction and boat building, as well as handles for tools. The date palm is indigenous to the region. Five-stamen tamarisk and mesquite form thickets along the lower and middle courses of the Tigris and its tributaries, up to an altitude of about 3,300 feet. Licorice is sufficiently plentiful to allow exports.
Wild pigs are common in the marshes. Jackals, hyenas, and mongooses are to be seen along the rivers in southern Iraq, and a large variety of Indian jungle cat reportedly still inhabits remote tamarisk thickets. Lions can be sighted along the Tigris. Foxes, wolves, and gazelles are common in the alluvial plain, and some of these range as far north as central Anatolia. Among the smaller animals are several species of gerbil, the jerboa (desert rat), hares, shrews, bats, the hedgehog, the river otter, and the Buxton's mole rat, which covers the entrance of its riverbank burrow with a mound of clay.
Locally resident birds include babblers, bulbuls, scrub warblers, sand grouse, crows, owls, a variety of hawks, falcons, eagles, and vultures. In spring and fall, many birds migrating between Europe and Asia--such as pelicans, storks, and various geese--fly along the rivers' courses, and the marshes provide a breeding ground for some migratory species.
There are several kinds of viper and a small cobra, as well as a variety of nonvenomous snakes. Lizards can reach lengths of nearly two feet. Frogs, toads, and turtles abound in the rivers and marshes. Among the freshwater fish of the Tigris-Euphrates system, the carp family is dominant. Barbels weighing as much as 300 pounds (136 kilograms) have been recorded. There are several varieties of catfish, as well as the spiny eel. Some saltwater species--including anchovy, gar, and sea bream--range upriver at least as far as Basra, and the Ganges shark has been known to reach Baghdad.
Also spelled Murad River, Turkish Murat Nehri, river, the major headstream of the Euphrates. In antiquity it was called Arsanias. The river rises north of Lake Van near Mount Ararat, in eastern Anatolia, and flows westward for 449 miles (722 km) through a mountainous region to unite with the Karasu Cayi and form the Upper Euphrates near Malatya.
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