II.

Course of the Tigris

The Tigris rises in two branches in the eastern Anatolian highlands of south-eastern Turkey. One branch begins south of Lake Hazar and the other south-west of Lake Van. The branches join at Til, flowing south-east into Iraq after briefly running along the extreme south-eastern portion of the Syria-Turkey border. Major tributaries of the Tigris are the Great Zab, Little Zab, Diyālā, and the Adhaim. While all of these rivers join the Tigris inside Iraq, the waters of the Great Zab rise in Turkey, while those of the Little Zab and the Diyālā rise in Iran. At al-Qurnah in southern Iraq the Tigris joins with the Euphrates to form the Shatt Al Arab. Along its course the Tigris flows through Diyarbakır (in Turkey), Mosul, Tikrit, Samarra, and Baghdad (all in Iraq).

The Tigris is shallow in many parts and contains numerous obstructions, but is navigable by some form of craft for most of its course; small river steamers can ascend the river as far as Baghdad, which was founded on its west bank in 762 and quickly became one of the largest and most well-planned cities in the world. The main portion of the region in Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates, now in part known as al-Jazirah, was ancient Mesopotamia. Also on the banks of the Tigris are the ruins of ancient Nineveh (opposite Mosul), Seleucia, and Ctesiphon.