Euphrates

Saturday, 15 December 2012

EUPHRATES River DRYING UP!! To prepare for Armageddon REV 16

The Temple of Solomon and the Euphrates River (HD)

Pixies - River Euphrates / Velouria (Acoustic)

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Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire (/ækəˈmɛnɪˌdi/; Old Persian: Parsā, name of ruling dynasty: Haxāmanišiya) (c. 550–330 BCE), sometimes known as First Persian Empire, was an Iranian empire in Southwest Asia, founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation. It expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world which at around 500 BCE stretched from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece making it the biggest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenid Empire would eventually control Egypt as well. It was ruled by a series of monarchs who unified its disparate tribes and nationalities by constructing a complex network of roads.
Calling themselves the Parsa after their original Aryan tribal name Parsua, Persians settled in a land which they named Parsua, bounded on the west by the Tigris River and on the south by the Persian Gulf. This became their heartland for the duration of the Achaemenid Empire. It was from this region that eventually Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II of Persia) would advance to defeat the Median, the Lydian, and the Babylonian Empires, opening the way for subsequent conquests into Egypt and Asia minor.

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Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea (/ɨˈdʒiːən/; Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος, Egeo Pelagos [eˈʝeo ˈpelaɣos] ( listen); Turkish: Ege Denizi or historically Turkish: Adalar Denizi) is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus. The Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The Aegean Region consists of nine provinces in southwestern Turkey, in part bordering on the Aegean sea.
The sea was traditionally known as Archipelago (in Greek, Αρχιπέλαγος, meaning "chief sea"), but in English this word's meaning has changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and, generally, to any island group.
The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 square kilometres (83,000 sq mi) in area, and measures about 610 kilometres (380 mi) longitudinally and 300 kilometres (190 mi) latitudinally. The sea's maximum depth is 3,543 metres (11,624 ft), east of Crete. The Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south (generally from west to east): Kythera, Antikythera, Crete, Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes.

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Akkadian Empire
Coordinates: 33°6′N 44°6′E / 33.1°N 44.1°E / 33.1; 44.1
The Akkadian Empire (Akkadian ^URUAkkad KI, Hittite KUR A.GA.DÈ.KI "land of Akkad"; Biblical Hebrew אַכַּד Akkad) was an empire centered in the city of Akkad (Sumerian: Agade) and its surrounding region in Mesopotamia.
During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism.Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate).
The Akkadian Empire reached its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests of its founder Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BC). Under Sargon and his successors, Akkadian language was briefly imposed on neighboring conquered states such as Elam. Akkad is sometimes regarded as the first empire in history, though there are earlier Sumerian claimants.^{[citation needed]}
The precise archaeological site of the city of Akkad has not yet been found.^{[citation needed]} The form Agade appears in Sumerian, for example in the Sumerian King List; the later Assyro-Babylonian form Akkadû ("of or belonging to Akkad") was likely derived from this. The etymology and meaning of Akkad (written a.ga.dè^KI or URI^KI) are unknown. Centuries later, the neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus mentioned in his archaeological records that Ishtar's worship in Agade was later superseded by that of the goddess Anunit, whose shrine was at Sippar—suggesting proximity of Sippar and Agade. Despite numerous searches, the city has never been found. One theory holds that Agade was situated opposite Sippar on the left bank of the Euphrates, and was perhaps the oldest part of the city of Sippar. Another theory is that the ruins of Akkad are to be found beneath modern Baghdad. Reputedly it was destroyed by invading Gutians with the fall of the Akkadian Empire.

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Aksu River (Turkey)
The Aksu (ancient name in Greek Κεστρoς, Kestros), is a river of Antalya Province (southwestern Turkey), which rises in the mountains of Toros. The course of the Aksu is between the Düden to the west and of the Köprüçay to the east.
The river is mentioned by Pomponius Mela as a navigable river, and as being navigable as far upriver as Perga, 60 stadia (about 11.1 kilometres (6.9 mi)) from its mouth, according to Strabo.
The Aksu is 100 metres (330 ft) wide at its mouth, and 3 metres (9.8 ft) deep within the bar, which extends across the mouth, and so shallow in places in its delta as to be impassable to boats that draw more than 1 foot (0.30 m) of water. The swell from the sea meeting the stream generally produces a violent surf.
At its headwaters is the Kovada Lake and just below that the Karacaören Dam reservoir.
Coordinates: 37°32′48″N 36°51′59″E / 37.546755°N 36.866298°E / 37.546755; 36.866298

wn.com/Aksu_River_(Turkey)
Al-Hasakah
Al-Hasakah (Syriac: ܚܣܟܗ, Arabic: الحسكة‎ Al Ḥasaka, Kurdish: Hesîçe) is the capital city of the Al-Hasakah Governorate and is located in the far north-east corner of Syria. With a population of 188,160 residents, Al-Hasakah is among the 10 largest cities in Syria and the largest in the governorate, with the majority being Christian ethnic Assyrians/Syriacs, the Muslims in the city are mainly Kurds and Arabs. The Khabur River runs through Al-Hasakah and the rest of the governorate. Coordinates: 36°29′N 40°45′E / 36.483°N 40.75°E / 36.483; 40.75
Armenian church in Al-Hasakah
Saint George Cathedral

wn.com/Al-Hasakah
Al-Qurnah
Al-Qurnah (Qurna) is a small village in southern Iraq about 74 km northwest of Basra, within the town of Nahairat. Qurna (Arabic for corner) is located at the point where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers join to form the Shatt al-Arab.
There is the small Qurna Tourist Hotel built during Saddam Hussein's reign in order to encourage tourism for the region, however it is most likely not in use now. As of the start of the Iraq War in 2003, conditions at the site were reportedly woeful. Cracked pavement and bullet holes along with the poor condition of the tree itself made future tourism seem out of the question. However, photographic evidence seen below and a certain amount of western presence has made it a viable tourist destination once again.
Basra area map.

wn.com/Al-Qurnah
Ar-Raqqah
Ar-Raqqah (Arabic: الرقة‎ Ar Raqqa), also spelled Rakka, is a city in north central Syria located on the north bank of the Euphrates, about 160 km east of Aleppo. It is the capital of the Ar-Raqqah Governorate and one of the main cities of the historical Diyār Muḍar, the western part of the Jazīra. According to th 2004 official census, the population of the city is 220,488 people.
The Seleucid king Seleukos II Kallinikos (reigned 246–225 BC) founded ar-Raqqah as the eponymous city of Kallinikos (Latinized as Callinicum). In the Byzantine period, the city was briefly named Leontoupolis by the emperor Leo I (reigned 457–474 AD), but the name Kallinikos prevailed. In 542, the city was destroyed by the invasion of the Persian Sasanid Shahanshah Khusrau I Anushirvan (reigned 531–579), but was subsequently rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (reigned 527–565).
In the 6th century, Kallinikos became a center of Syriac monasticism. Deir Mār Zakkā, or the Saint Zacchaeus Monastery, situated on the tell just north of the city, today's Tall al-Bi'a, became renowned. A mosaic inscription there is dated to the year 509, presumably from the period of the foundation of the monastery. Deir Mār Zakkā is mentioned by various sources up to the 10th century. The second important monastery in the area was the Bīzūnā monastery or 'Dairā d-Esţunā', the 'monastery of the column'. In the 9th century, when ar-Raqqah served as capital of the western half of the Abbasid Caliphate, this monastery became the seat of the Syriac Patriarch of Antioch.

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Aras River
The Aras (also known as Araks, Arax, Araxi, Araxes, Araz, or Yeraskh; Armenian: Արաքս or Երասխ (Araqs or Erasx), Azerbaijani: Aras or Araz, ارس or آراز, Persian: ارس‎ (Aras), Turkish: Aras, Kurdish: Aras or Erez; Russian: Аракс; Latin: Aboras), is a river located in and along the countries of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Its total length is 1,072 kilometers (666 mi). Given its length and a basin that covers an area of 102,000 km², it is one of the largest rivers of the Caucasus.

The Aras River highlighted on a map of the Kura River watershed.
Aras River in Poldasht District border region.
Aras River from Iğdır.
Astronaut photograph of the Aras River.
See Ἀράξης for the origin of the Greek name.
The Aras River rises near Erzurum, Turkey. It meets with the Akhurian River southeast of Digor, flows along the Turkish-Armenian border, and then near a corridor that connects Turkey to Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave. It then flows along the Iranian-Azerbaijan and the Iranian-Armenian border. The river then flows along the border between Iran and the main territory of the Azerbaijan to meet with the Kura River at the village of Sabirabad. It then directly flows into the Caspian Sea. About 101,937 km² of the Araz River basin is located in Azerbaijan.^{[citation needed]}

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Baghdad
Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد‎, Baġdād, IPA: [bæɣˈdæːd]) is the capital of Republic of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Province. The population of Baghdad as of 2011 is approximately 7,216,040, making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab World (after Cairo, Egypt), and the second largest city in Western Asia (after Tehran, Iran).
Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic World. This in addition to housing several key academic institutions (e.g. House of Wisdom) garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with an estimated population of 1,200,000 people. The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state (formerly the British Mandate of Mesopotamia) in 1938, Baghdad gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arabic culture.

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Bakırçay
Bakırçay (ancient name: Caicus, also Caecus; Greek: Καϊκός, transliterated as Kaïkos; formerly Astraeus) is the ancient name of a river of Asia Minor that rises in the Temnus mountains and flows through Lydia, Mysia, and Aeolis before it debouches into the Elatic Gulf. To the Hittites, it was the Seha river. The modern Turkish name of the river is Bakırçay (formerly the Aksu), and it is located in the Asian part of Turkey.
The river is first mentioned by Hesiod, who, along with the other poets, fixes the quantity of the penultimate syllable of Caicus. Plutarch relates that the name of the river was originally Astraeus but was changed after Caicus, a son of Hermes, threw himself into it after sleeping with his sister Alcippe.
Strabo (p. 616) says that the sources of the Caicus are in a plain separated by the range of Temnus from the plain of Apiae, and that the plain of Apia lies above the plain of Thebe in the interior. He adds that there also flows from Tetanus a river (the Mysius) which joins the Caicus below its source. The Caicus enters the sea approximately 12 km from Pitane, and 3 km from Elaea. Elaea was the port of Pergamon, which was on the Caicus, approximately 25 km from Elaea. At the source of the Caicus, according to Strabo, was a place called Gergitha.

wn.com/Bakırçay
Bartın River
Bartın River (Bartın Çayı, ancient Parthenius, Parthenios), is a small river in east of Black Sea Region of Turkey. Its source is Ilgaz Mountains, in Kastamonu Province and Karabük Province, it flows to the north, passes through in Bartın and empties into the Black Sea near Boğaz village in a delta.
The last 14 kilometers on the Bartın River, between Bartın and Black Sea coast is navigable for vessels.
Coordinates: 41°41′N 32°15′E / 41.683°N 32.25°E / 41.683; 32.25

wn.com/Bartın_River
Basra Governorate
Basra Province (Arabic: البصرة Al Baṣra‎) (or Basra Governorate) is a province in southern Iraq, bordering Kuwait to the south and Iran to the east. The provincial capital is the city of Basra. Other districts of Basra include Al-Qurnah, Az Zubayr, Al Mudaynah, Shatt Al Arab, Abu Al Khaseeb and Al Faw located on the Persian Gulf.
In 1920, after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the United Kingdom took over the former Ottoman vilayets of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul which had together formed the historical region of Irak Arabi or Irak Babeli, and called it the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. The mandate was succeeded by the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932.

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Biga Çayı
The Biga River (Turkish: Biga Çayı) is a small river or large creek in Çanakkale Province in northwestern Turkey. The river begins at the base of Mount Ida and trends generally northeasterly to the Sea of Marmara. It is located approximately 50 km to the east of the Dardanelles. It flows past the towns of Çan and Biga and enters the Sea of Marmara at Karabiga. It is also known as the Can (Çan Çayı) and the Kocabas (Kocabaş Çayı)
The Biga was the classical Granicus (Ancient Greek: Γρανικὸς ποταμός, Granikòs Potamós).
The banks near the modern-day town of Biga were the site of the Battle of the Granicus, fought in 334 BC between the Macedonian army of Alexander the Great and the forces of the Persian Empire under Darius III. This was Alexander's first victory over the Persians. In antiquity, the river was described as having strong, turbulent current, with steep banks and varying depth.
There is also a valley named in its honor on Mars. The Granicus Valles is located at 29.72° N, 131.0° E and runs for 750 km.

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Birecik
Birecik (Greek: Βίρθα and later Macedonopolis or Makedonopolis; Latin: Birtha; Arabic: al-Bīrā البيرا‎; Kurdish: Bêrecûg, Ottoman Turkish: بيره جك), also formerly known as Bir and during the Crusades as Bile, is a town and district of Şanlıurfa Province of Turkey, on the River Euphrates.
Birecik Dam and hydroelectric power plant, part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project is situated within the district. The Roman city of Zeugma is now drowned in the reservoir behind the dam. Zeugma's famous mosaics, including the 'river god', have been taken to Gaziantep Museum, but some rescued remains of Zeugma are exhibited in Birecik. With its rich architectural heritage, Birecik is a member of the Norwich-based European Association of Historic Towns and Regions (EAHTR) [1].
The Northern Bald Ibis used to nest here and winter in the deserts of Arabia, up to 1,000 pairs in the 1960s. Now a few dozen birds remain and these no longer migrate but remain protected year-round in Birecik.
Birecik is a bridge across the Euphrates and a useful stopping place on the road from Şanlıurfa to Gaziantep, with waterside restaurants.

wn.com/Birecik
Busayrah
Busayrah is a town in eastern Syria, situated at the confluence of the Euphrates and Khabur Rivers. It was once known in Latin as Circesium.

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Ceyhan River
Ceyhan River (or historically Pyramos or Pyramus (Greek: Πύραμος), the Leucosyrus or Jihun in Anatolia in south of Turkey or Asia Minor
The Ceyhan River (Pyramus) has its source (known as Söğütlü Dere) at a location called Pınarbaşı 3 km on the Nurhak Mountains of the Eastern Taurus range, southeast of the town of Elbistan in the Kahramanmaraş province of Turkey . According to classical references its source is at Cataonia near the town of Arabissus. Its main tributaries are called Harman, Göksun, Mağara Gözü, Fırnız, Tekir, Körsulu, Aksu (which joins Ceyhan at on the outskirts of Kahramanmaraş), Çakur, Susas, Çeperce. Its total length is 509 km or 316 miles.
In classical times for a time it passed under ground, but then came forward again as a navigable river, and forced its way through a glen of Mount Taurus, which in some parts was so narrow that Strabo claims a god can leap across it. Its course, which to this point had been south, then turned to the southwest, and reached the sea. The river was deep and rapid ; its average breadth was 1 stadium.

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Deir ez-Zor
Coordinates: 35°20′N 40°9′E / 35.333°N 40.15°E / 35.333; 40.15
Deir ez-Zor, also spelled Dayr al-Zawr, Der Ezzor, Deir Azzor, and other variants (Arabic: دير الزور‎; Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܙܥܘܪܬܐ, Armenian: Տէր Զօր, Դեր Զոր, Ter Zor), is the 7th largest city in Syria and the largest in the eastern part of Syria. Located 450 km to the northeast from the capital Damascus on the shores of Euphrates River, Deir ez-Zor is the capital of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. According to the 2004 official census, 211,857 people are residing in the city.
Among Syrians and neighbouring regions, Ad-Deir is used for short to indicate Deir ez Zor^{[citation needed]}. The Current name, which has been extended to the region around it, indicates an ancient site for one of the Early Christian secluded monasteries spread since the persecution times and Apostolic Age throughout Mesopotamia. Although Deir, which is Arabic for "monastery", thought to be kept throughout Medieval and Modern Age renaming, Zor, which indicates the riverbank bush, appeared only in some late Ottoman records.

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Egypt
Egypt ⁱ/ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (Arabic: مصر, Miṣr, Egyptian Arabic: [mɑsˤɾ] ; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi ; Sahidic Coptic: ⲕⲏⲙⲉ, Kēme), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: جمهوريّة مصر العربيّة (help·info), is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.
Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its over 81 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.

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Elam
Elam was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq. The modern name Elam is a transcription from Biblical Hebrew, corresponding to the Sumerian elam(a), the Akkadian elamtu, and the Elamite haltamti. Elamite states were among the leading political forces of the ancient near east. In classical literature, Elam was more often referred to as Susiana, a name derived from its capital, Susa.
Situated just to the east of Mesopotamia, Elam was part of the early urbanization during the Chalcolithic period (Copper Age). The emergence of written records from around 3000 BC also parallels Mesopotamian history where writing was used slightly earlier. In the Old Elamite period (Middle Bronze Age), Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a crucial role in the Gutian Empire, especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it, when the Elamite language remained among those in official use. Elamite is generally treated as an isolate language.

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Eridu
Coordinates: 30°48′57.02″N 45°59′45.85″E / 30.8158389°N 45.9960694°E / 30.8158389; 45.9960694
Eridu (Cuniform: NUN.KI 𒉣 𒆠; Sumerian: eridu^ki; Akkadian: irîtu) is an ancient Sumerian city in what is now Tell Abu Shahrain, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq. Eridu was considered the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia, and is one of the oldest cities in the world. Located 12 km southwest of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities that grew about temples, almost in sight of one another. In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was originally the home of Enki, who was considered to have founded the city, later known by the Akkadians as Ea. His temple was called E-Abzu, as Enki was believed to live in Abzu ("Deep Ocean"), an aquifer from which all life was believed to stem.
Eridu, also transliterated as Eridug, could mean "mighty place" or "guidance place". In the Sumerian king list, Eridu is named as the city of the first kings. The kinglist continues:
In Eridu, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. Alalngar ruled for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. Then Eridu fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira.

wn.com/Eridu
Fallujah
Fallujah (Arabic: الفلوجة‎, ʾal-Falūǧah, IPA: [ʔalfaˈluːdʒah]; Aramaic: Pumbeidtha‎ - פומבדיתא) is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly 69 kilometers (43 mi) west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries.
The city grew from a small town in 1947 to a population of 326,471 inhabitants in 2010. Within Iraq, it is known as the "city of mosques" for the more than 200 mosques found in the city and surrounding villages.
The region has been inhabited for many millennia. There is evidence that the area surrounding Fallujah was inhabited in Babylonian times. The current name of the city is thought to come from its Syriac name, Pallgutha, which is derived from the word division or "canal regulator" since it was the location where the water of the Euphrates River divided into a canal. Classical authors cited the name as "Pallacottas". The name in Aramaic is Pumbedita."
The region of Fallujah was a part of the Sassanid Persian province of Anbar. The word anbar is Persian and means "warehouse". Known as Firuz Shapur or Perisapora during the Sassanian Era, it was one the main commercial center of the Lakhmid Kingdom. One mile north of Fallujah lie extensive ruins which are identified with the town of Anbar. Anbar was located at the confluence of the Euphrates River with the King's Canal, today the Saqlawiyah Canal, known in Early Islamic times as the Nahr 'Isa and in ancient times as Nahr Malka. Subsequent shifts in the Euphrates River channel have caused it to follow the course of the ancient Pallacottas canal. The town at this site in Jewish sources was known as Nehardea and was the primary center of Babylonian Jewry until its destruction by the Palmyran ruler Odenathus in 259. The Medieval Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela in 1164 visited "el-Anbar which is Pumbeditha in Nehardea" and said it had 3000 Jews living there.

wn.com/Fallujah
France
France (English ⁱ/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km² (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km² / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.

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Gelevara
Gelevara Deresi is one of two main streams of Espiye, a district of Giresun province in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey. Its two main tributaries arise in the highlands of Espiye district of Giresun and Torul district of Gümüşhane.
In the west its shorter arm originates from Çekümbeli highland near Tohumluk village. Its longer arm starts in Tekçam-Kürünbeli spring in Hanzara Obası and Ayıbeli Deresi in Ayıbeli Obası. It is very interesting that the springs of its arms are very close to each other as to be reached nearly in one hour by foot. The source of the longer arm looks like triangular area which is used as the borders of three districts: Espiye, Alucra and Torul. Firstly it goes to northeast direction passing through Beytarla and Sapmaz villages of Kürtün district of Gümüşhane province, then enters into Giresun borders again. After the two arms of the stream flow parallel for nearly 40-50 kilometers they aggregate as Gelevara after Arpacık village in Güce district adjacent to Espiye district. Gelevara flows down to Black Sea in the east end of Espiye town like Yağlıdere stream, its sister. On its mouth to Black Sea there is a ferroconcrete bridge on D010 Highway connecting Giresun and Trabzon provinces.

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Geography of Iraq
The geography of Iraq is diverse and falls into four main regions: the desert (west of the Euphrates), Upper Mesopotamia (between the upper Tigris and Euphratesh rivers), the northern highlands of Iraqi Kurdistan, and Lower Mesopotamia, the alluvial plain extending from around Tikrit to the Persian Gulf.
The mountains in the northeast are an extension of the alpine system that runs eastward from the Balkans through southern Turkey, northern Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, eventually reaching the Himalayas. The desert is in the southwest and central provinces along the borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan and geographically belongs with the Arabian Peninsula.
Iraq holds a special distinction in the history of geography: a clay tablet generally accepted as "the earliest known map" was unearthed in 1930 during the excavation of Ga-Sur at Nuzi Yorghan Tepe, near the towns of Harran and Kirkuk, 200 miles (322 km) north of the site of Babylon. The tablet, measuring 6.8 × 7.6 in (173 × 193 mm), is usually dated from the dynasty of Sargon of Akkad between 2500-2300 BC; an even earlier date for the tablet was promulgated by archeologist Leo Bagrow, placing it in the Agade Period (3800 BC).

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Golan Heights
The Golan Heights (Arabic: هضبة الجولان‎ Haḍbatu 'l-Jawlān or مرتفعات الجولان Murtafaʻātu l-Jawlān, Hebrew: רמת הגולן‎, Ramat ha-Golan (audio) (help·info)), referred to as the Syrian Golan by the United Nations, and as the Golan by other sources, forms a rocky plateau in the Anti-Lebanon mountains that overlooks southern Syria. The plateau has an average altitude of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), an area totaling 1,800 square kilometres (690 sq mi), and straddles the boundary between Syria and Israeli-held territory. Elevations range from 2,814 metres (9,232 ft) in the north at Mount Hermon, to below sea level along the Sea of Galilee and the Yarmuk River in the south. Internationally recognized as Syrian territory, it has been occupied and administered by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. The region attracts three million tourists a year and supplies Israel with one-third of its water.
The earliest evidence of human habitation dates to the Upper Paleolithic period. According to the Bible, an Amorite Kingdom in Bashan was conquered by Israelites during the reign of King Og. Throughout the Old Testament period, the Golan was "the focus of a power struggle between the Kings of Israel and the Aramaeans who were based near modern-day Damascus." The Itureans, an Arab or Aramaic people, settled there in the 2nd century BCE and remained until the end of the Byzantine period. Organized Jewish settlement in the region came to an end in 636 CE when it was conquered by Arabs under Umar ibn al-Khattāb. In the 16th century, the Golan was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and was part of the Vilayet of Damascus until it was transferred to French control in 1918. When the mandate terminated in 1946, it became part of the newly independent Syrian Arab Republic.

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Habbaniyah
Al Habbaniyah or Habbaniya (Arabic: الحبانية) is a city in Al-Anbar Province, in central Iraq.
Coordinates: 33°22′N 43°34′E / 33.367°N 43.567°E / 33.367; 43.567

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Hatay province
Hatay Province (Turkish: Hatay ili , pronounced [ˈhataj]) is a province in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean coast. It is bordered by Syria to the south and east and the Turkish provinces of Adana and Osmaniye to the north. The province is part of Çukurova, a geographical, economical and cultural region that covers the provinces of Mersin, Adana, Osmaniye, and Hatay. The administrative capital is Antakya (Antioch), and the other major city in the province is the port city of İskenderun (Alexandretta). There are border crossing points with Syria in the district of Yayladağı and at Cilvegözü in the district of Reyhanlı.
Settled since the early Bronze Age, Hatay was once of the Akkadian Empire, then the Amorite Kingdom of Yamhad and Mitannis, then a succession of Hittites, the Neo-Hittite "Hattena" people that later gave the modern province of Hatay its name, then the Assyrians (except a brief occupation by Urartu) and Persians. The region was the center of the Hellenistic Seleucid empire, home to the four Greek cities of the Syrian tetrapolis (Antioch, Seleucia Pieria, Apamea, and Laodicea). From 64 BC onwards the city of Antioch became an important regional centre of the Roman Empire.

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Hīt
Hīt (Arabic: هيت‎) is an Iraqi city in Al-Anbar province. Hīt lies northwest of Ramadi, the provincial capital.
On the Euphrates River, Hīt is a small walled town built on two mounds on the site of the ancient city of Is; bitumen wells in the vicinity have been utilized for at least 3,000 years and were used in the building of Babylon. Hīt is a marketplace for agricultural produce and oil pipelines to the Mediterranean Sea cross the Euphrates there. It was regarded as the head of navigation on the river before the decline in river traffic.

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Iran
Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53
Iran (ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران‎ [ʔiˈɾɒn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎ Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.
The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km² (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.

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Iraq
Iraq (/ɪˈræk/ or ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːk/; Arabic: العراق‎ al-‘Irāq); officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic: جمهورية العراق (help·info) Jumhūriyyat al-‘Irāq), is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.
Iraq borders Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km (36 mi) on the northern Persian Gulf. The capital city, Baghdad is in the center-east of the country.
Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the center of Iraq, flowing from northwest to southeast. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the steppe and desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia.
Historically, Iraq was the center of the Abbasid Arabic Islamic Empire. Iraq has been known to the west by the Greek toponym 'Mesopotamia' (Land between the rivers) and has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the 6th millennium BC. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is often referred to as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of writing, law and the wheel. At different periods in its history, Iraq was the center of the indigenous Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid empires. It was also part of the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires, and under British control as a League of Nations mandate.

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Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region (Kurdish: هه‌رێمی کوردستان‎‎, Herêmî Kurdistan; Arabic: إقليم كردستان العراق‎ Iqlīm Kurdistān al-‘Irāq) is an autonomous region of Iraq. It borders Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and the rest of Iraq to the south. The regional capital is Arbil, known in Kurdish as Hewlêr. The region is officially governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The establishment of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq dates back to the March 1970 autonomy agreement between the Kurdish opposition and the Iraqi government after years of heavy fighting. The Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s and the Anfal genocide campaign of the Iraqi army devastated the population and nature of Iraqi Kurdistan. Following the 1991 uprising of the Iraqi people against Saddam Hussein, many Kurds were forced to flee the country to become refugees in bordering regions of Iran and Turkey. A northern no-fly zone was established following the First Gulf War in 1991 to facilitate the return of Kurdish refugees. As Kurds continued to fight government troops, Iraqi forces finally left Kurdistan in October 1991, leaving the region to function de facto independently; however, neither of the two major Kurdish parties had at any time declared independence and Iraqi Kurdistan continues to view itself as an integral part of a united Iraq but one in which it administers its own affairs. The 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent political changes led to the ratification of a new Constitution of Iraq in 2005. The new Iraqi constitution defines Iraqi Kurdistan as a federal entity of Iraq, and establishes Arabic and Kurdish as Iraq's joint official languages.

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Isin
Coordinates: 31°56′N 45°17′E / 31.933°N 45.283°E / 31.933; 45.283
Isin (Sumerian: I₃-si-in^ki) was an ancient city-state of lower Mesopotamia about 20 miles south of Nippur at the site of modern Ishan al-Bahriyat in Iraq's Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate.
The city lay on the Isinnitum Canal, part of a set of waterways that connected the cities of Mesopotamia. The patron deity of Isin was Nintinuga (Gula) goddess of healing, and a temple to her was built there. The Isin king Enlil-bani reported building a temple to Gula named E-ni-dub-bi, a temple for Sud named E-dim-gal-an-na, a temple E-ur-gi-ra to Ninisina, as well as a temple for the god Ninbgal.
The site of Isin was occupied at least as early as the Early Dynastic Period in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, and possibly as far back as the Ubaid period. While cuneiform tablets from that time were found, the first epigraphic reference to Isin was not until the Ur III period.
When the deteriorating Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur-III) finally collapsed at the hands of the Elamites at the end of the third millennium BC, a power vacuum was left that other city-states scrambled to fill. The last king of the Ur Dynasty, Ibbi-Sin, had not the resources nor the organized government needed to expel the Elamite invaders. One of his governmental officials, Ishbi-Erra, relocated from Ur to Isin, another city in the south of Mesopotamia, and established himself as a ruler there. One of Ishbi-Erra's year names reports his defeating Ibbi-Sin in battle.

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Jordan
Jordan ( /ˈdʒɔr.dən/;Arabic: اَلأُرْدُنّ, Al-'Urdunn), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Arabic: اَلمَمْلَكَة اَلأُرْدُنِيَّة اَلهَاشِمِيَّة), Al-Mamlakah Al-Urdaniyyah Al-Hashimiyyah) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing control of the Dead Sea with the latter. Jordan's only port is at its south-western tip, at the Gulf of Aqaba, which is shared with Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Over half of Jordan is covered by the Arabian Desert. However, the western part of Jordan is arable land and forests. Jordan is part of the Fertile Crescent. The capital city is Amman. According to the CIA World Factbook, Jordan has the second highest life expectancy in the Middle East, after Israel. The average life expectancy is one position behind the United Kingdom, although the age remains exactly the same (80.05 years).
The precursor to modern Jordan was founded in 1921 as the Hashemite Emirate, and it was recognized by the League of Nations as a state under the British mandate in 1922 known as The Emirate of Transjordan. In 1946, Jordan became an independent sovereign state officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. After capturing the West Bank area of Cisjordan during the 1948–49 war with Israel, Abdullah I took the title King of Jordan and Palestine, and he officially changed the country's name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in April 1949.

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Kish (Sumer)
Coordinates: 32°33′N 44°39′E / 32.55°N 44.65°E / 32.55; 44.65
Kish (Sumerian: Kiš; transliteration: Kiŝ^ki; cuneiform: 𒆧𒆠;Akkadian: kiššatu) is modern Tell al-Uhaymir (Babil Governorate, Iraq), and was an ancient city of Sumer. Kish is located some 12 km east of Babylon, and 80 km south of Baghdad (Iraq).
Kish was occupied beginning in the Jemdet Nasr period (ca. 3100 BC), gaining prominence as one of the pre-eminent powers in the region during the early dynastic period.
The Sumerian king list states that it was the first city to have kings following the deluge, beginning with Jushur. Jushur's successor is called Kullassina-bel, but this is actually a sentence in Akkadian meaning "All of them were lord". Thus, some scholars have suggested that this may have been intended to signify the absence of a central authority in Kish for a time. The names of the next nine kings of Kish preceding Etana are all Akkadian words for animals, e.g. Zuqaqip "scorpion". The Semitic nature of these and other early names associated with Kish reveals that its population had a strong Semitic component from the dawn of recorded history.

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Kufa
Kufa (Arabic,الكوفة al-Kūfah) is a city in Iraq, about 170 kilometres (110 mi) south of Baghdad, and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000.
Along with Samarra, Karbala, Kadhimiya and Najaf, Kufa is one of five Iraqi cities that are of great importance to Shia Muslims. The city was the final capital of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and was founded within the first hundred years of the 622 Hijra^{[citation needed]}.
The city contains the Great Mosque of Kufa, one of the earliest mosques in Islam, built in the 7th century.
File:Kufa masjid.pdf
See Ancient Mesopotamia.
Ruled by Sassanian Empire as part of Suristan province. See Middle Bih-Kavad.
The Arabs, led by Caliph ʻUmar ibn Khattāb, conquer Iraq and begin ruling Suristan around 637.
ʻUmar ibn Khattāb became the second caliph in 634. After the Arab victory against the East Roman Empire at Battle of Yarmouk in 636, Kūfah was founded and given its name in 637–638 CE, about the same time as Basra. The Companion of the Prophet Saʻd ibn Abī Waqqas founded it as an encampment adjacent to the Lakhmid Arab city of al-Hīrah, and incorporated it as a city of seven divisions. The city was alternately known to non-Arabs as Hīrah and Aqulah before the consolidations of ʻAbdu l-Mālik in 691.

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Kuwait
Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait ⁱ/kuːˈweɪt/ (Arabic: دولة الكويت‎, Dawlat al-Kuwayt) is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the Arabic أكوات ākwāt, the plural of كوت kūt, meaning a fortress built near water. The country covers an area of 17,820 square kilometers (6,880 sq mi) and has a population of about 3.5 million.
Historically, the region was the site of Characene, a major Parthian port for trade between Mesopotamia and India. The Bani Utbah tribe were the first permanent Arab settlers in the region, and laid the foundation of the modern emirate. By the 19th century, Kuwait came under the influence of the Ottoman Empire, and after World War I, it emerged as an independent sheikhdom under the protection of the British Empire. Kuwait's large oil fields were discovered in the late 1930s.

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Küçük Menderes
Küçük Menderes, "Little Meander") or Cayster River is located south of İzmir, Turkey. The Cayster generally flows westward and arrive into the Aegean Sea at Pamucak beach near Selçuk, İzmir. The ancient city of Ephesus was once an important port on the Cayster, but over the centuries, sedimentation gradually filled in the inlet around the city. The coastlines moved seaward and the ruins of Ephesus are now some 5 miles inland from the coast.
The tributaries are the Fertek, Uladı, Ilıca, Değirmen, Aktaş, Rahmanlar, Prinçci, Yuvalı, Ceriközkayası, Eğridere, Birgi, Çevlik and Keles.
Coordinates: 37°57′28″N 27°15′49″E / 37.9578°N 27.2635°E / 37.9578; 27.2635

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Lake Qadisiyah
A man-made reservoir in Al-Anbar, Iraq, Lake Qadisiyah (Arabic: بحيرة القادسية‎) sits on the north side of the Haditha Dam.
Qadisiyah was formed by the damming of the Euphrates River above Haditha, Iraq. It has 100 kilometres of shoreline and provides irrigation water for nearby cultivated fields.
On December 3, 2006 it was the site of an emergency landing by an American forces CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing that resulted in the drowning deaths of four out of its sixteen passengers.
Coordinates: 34°18′32″N 42°14′20″E / 34.30889°N 42.23889°E / 34.30889; 42.23889

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Larsa
Coordinates: 31°17′9″N 45°51′13″E / 31.28583°N 45.85361°E / 31.28583; 45.85361
Larsa (Sumerian logogram: UD.UNUG^KI, read Larsam^ki) was an important city of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu. It lies some 25 km southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah.
According to the Sumerian king list, "Larag" (Sumerian: LA-RA-AK^KI) was one of the five cities to "exercise kingship" in the legendary antediluvian era. The historical "Larsa" was already in existence as early as the reign of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed it to his empire.
The city became a political force during the Isin-Larsa period. After the Third Dynasty of Ur collapsed ca. 1940 BC, Ishbi-Erra, an official of Ibbi-Sin, the last king of the Ur III Dynasty, relocated to Isin and set up a government which purported to be the successor to the Ur III dynasty. From there, Ishbi-Erra recaptured Ur as well as the cities of Uruk and Lagash, which Larsa was subject to. Subsequent Isin rulers appointed governors to rule over Lagash; one such governor was an Amorite named Gungunum. He eventually broke with Isin and established an independent dynasty in Larsa. To legitimize his rule and deliver a blow to Isin, Gungunum captured the city of Ur. As the region of Larsa was the main center of trade via the Persian Gulf, Isin lost an enormously profitable trade route, as well as a city with much cultic significance.

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Limonlu Çayı
The Lamus also Lamos, ( now the Turkish: Lamas or Limonlu Çayı) river is a river of ancient Cilicia, now in Mersin Province, Turkey. The river formed the boundary between Cilicia Campestris and Cilicia Trachea, and later between Cilicia Aspera and Cilicia Propria. At its mouth was the city Antiochia Lamotis, earlier Lamos, formerly the capital of the surrounding region, the Lamotis. [1] (Alexander Polyhistor cited by Stephanus of Byzantium, Ptolemy Book V, ch. 8, § 6; Strabo, Geography, 14.5.6-7)
Coordinates: 36°35′N 34°16′E / 36.583°N 34.267°E / 36.583; 34.267

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Manavgat River
Manavgat River originates on the eastern slopes of Western Taurus Mountains in Turkey, and flows south over conglomerated strata for about 90 km, then over the Manavgat Waterfall and though the coastal plain and into the Mediterranean Sea. There are many caves in the river watershed area, the most interesting being the Altınbeşik cave.
The maximum flow of the Manavgat River is 500 m³/second, with an average of 147 m³/second. Using the average flow as a measure, the Manavgat River accounts for a very small amount ot the water flowing into the Mediterranean. There are two dams over the river: Oymapınar Dam and the Manavgat Dam. Studies have shown that water drains into the Manavgat River basin from its surface watershed and also from endorheic basins, especially those to the east of the river.
In 1992, the Turkish State Hydraulics Work (DSI) was given the job of developing a water supply project for domestic use from the Manavgat river.
Coordinates: 36°43′N 31°28′E / 36.717°N 31.467°E / 36.717; 31.467

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Manbij
Manbij (Arabic: منبج‎ Manbiǧ, Classical Syriac: ܡܒܘܓ‎ mabbug) is a town in the Aleppo Governorate, Syria, 30 kilometers west of the Euphrates. In the 2004 census by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Manbij had a population of nearly 100,000.
The ruins of the ancient city "Hierapolis Bambyce," also known as "Hierapolis Euphratensis" or "Hierapolis in Euphratesia", are 20 km north, where remains of aqueducts and the Byzantine walls of Justinian are still to be seen.
The place first appears in Greek as Bambyce, but Pliny (v. 23) tells us its Syrian name was Mabog (also Mabbog, Mabbogh). As a centre of the worship of the Syrian goddess Atargatis, it became known to the Greeks as the Ἱερόπολις (Hieropolis) 'city of the sanctuary', and finally as Ἱεράπολις (Hierapolis) 'holy city'.
This worship of Atargatis was immortalized in De Dea Syria which has traditionally been attributed to Lucian of Samosata, a native of Commagene, who gave a full description of the religious cult of the shrine and the tank of sacred fish of Atargatis, of which Aelian also relates marvels. According to the De Dea Syria, the worship was of a phallic character, votaries offering little male figures of wood and bronze. There were also huge phalli set up like obelisks before the temple, which were ceremoniously climbed once a year and decorated.

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Mari, Syria
Mari (modern Tell Hariri, Syria) was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers north-west of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some 120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria. It is thought to have been inhabited since the 5th millennium BC, although it flourished with series of superimposed palaces that spans a thousand years, from 2900 BC until 1759 BC, when it was sacked by Hammurabi.
Mari was discovered in 1933, on the eastern flank of Syria, near the Iraqi border. A Bedouin tribe was digging through a mound for a gravestone that would be used for a recently deceased tribesman, when they came across a headless statue. After the news reached the French authorities currently in control of Syria, the report was investigated, and digging on the site was started on December 14, 1933 by archaeologists from the Louvre in Paris. Discoveries came quickly, with the temple of Ishtar being discovered in the next month. Mari was classified by the archaeologists as the "most westerly outpost of Sumerian culture".^{[citation needed]} Since the beginning of excavations, over 25,000 clay tablets in Akkadian language written in cuneiform were discovered. Finds from the excavation are on display in the National Museum of Aleppo, the National Museum of Damascus, and the Deir ez-Zor Museum. In the latter, the southern façade of the "Court of the Palms" of Zimri-Lim's palace has been reconstructed, including the wall paintings.

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Marmara Sea
The Sea of Marmara /ˈmɑrmərə/ (Greek: Θάλασσα του Μαρμαρά, Turkish: Marmara Denizi), also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis (Greek: Προποντίς), is the inland sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey's Asian and European parts. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black Sea and the Dardanelles strait to the Aegean. The former also separates Istanbul into its Asian and European sides. The Sea has an area of 11,350 km² (280 km x 80 km) with the greatest depth reaching 1,370 m.
The salinity of the sea averages about 22 parts per thousand, which is slightly greater than that of the Black Sea but only about two-thirds that of most oceans. However, the water is much more saline at the sea-bottom, averaging salinities of around 38 parts per thousand — similar to that of the Mediterranean Sea. This high-density saline water, like that of the Black Sea itself, does not migrate to the surface. Water from the Susurluk, Biga (Granicus) and Gonen Rivers also reduces the salinity of the sea, though with less influence than on the Black Sea. With little land in Thrace draining southward, almost all of these rivers flow from Anatolia.

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Mayadin
Mayadin (Arabic: ميادين‎) is a city in eastern Syria. It is located at about 35°1′0″N 40°27′0″E / 35.016667°N 40.45°E / 35.016667; 40.45Coordinates: 35°1′0″N 40°27′0″E / 35.016667°N 40.45°E / 35.016667; 40.45. Euphrates River flows through the town.

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Medes
The Medes (/midz/) (from Old Persian Māda-) were an ancient Iranian people who lived in Iran in an area known as Media and spoke a northwestern Iranian language referred to as the Median language. Their arrival to the region is associated with the first wave of Iranian tribes in the late second millennium BCE (the Bronze Age collapse) through the beginning of the first millennium BCE.
In the 7th century BCE a unified Median state was formed which together with Babylonia, Lydia, and Egypt became one of the four major powers of the ancient Near East. An alliance with the Babylonians helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BCE which resulted in the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes were subsequently able to establish their Median kingdom (with Ecbatana as their royal centre) beyond their original homeland (central-western Iran) and had eventually a territory stretching roughly from northeastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. The Median kingdom was conquered in 550 BCE by Cyrus the Great who established the next Iranian dynasty—the Achaemenid Empire.

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Murat River
The Murat River (Turkish: Murat Nehri) or Eastern Euphrates is the major source of the Euphrates. It was also called Arsanias (Armenian: Արածանի) in antiquity. The river originates near Mount Ararat north of Lake Van, in eastern Turkey, and flows westward for 722 km (449 mi) through mountainous area. Before construction of the Keban Dam, the Murat River joined the Karasu 10 km (6.2 mi) north the dam site and 13 km (8.1 mi) north the town of Keban.
Turkey's once largest dam, the Keban Dam, was completed in 1974 and is designed to provide electrical power.
Coordinates: 39°24′N 43°45′E / 39.4°N 43.75°E / 39.4; 43.75

wn.com/Murat_River
Nasiriyah
Nasiriyah (Arabic: الناصرية‎; BGN: An Nāşirīyah; also spelled Nassiriya or Nasiriya) is a city in Iraq. It is on the Euphrates about 225 miles (370 km) southeast of Baghdad, near the ruins of the ancient city of Ur. It is the capital of the province of Dhi Qar. According to the 1987 census the city had a population of 265,937 people; the estimated population in 2003 was 560,200.
The population of Nasiriyah is nearly exclusively^{[clarification needed]}Shī‘a Muslims with small Mandaean and Sunni muslim communities, until 1951 the town was a home to a sizable Jewish community. After the failed uprising of 1991, many families were massacred by Saddam Hussein's forces whilst thousands fled from Iraq to other countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Sweden.
Nasiriyah is the centre of a date-growing area, but many other agricultural products are produced here as well. The city's industries include boatbuilding, carpentry and silver working.
The old parts of the town are built mainly from sun-dried brick and this part of the town is still enclosed by a mud wall. The newer parts are dominated by standard Iraqi block buildings.

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Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was an empire in Mesopotamian history which began in 934 BC and ended in 605 BC. During this period, Assyria assumed a position as the most powerful nation on earth, successfully eclipsing Babylonia, Egypt, Urartu/Armenia and Elam for dominance of the Near East, Asia Minor, Caucasus, North Africa and east Mediterranean, though not until the reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III in the 8th century BC did it become a vast empire. Assyria was originally an Akkadian kingdom which evolved in the 25th to 24th Centuries BC. The earliest Assyrian kings such as Tudiya were relatively minor rulers, and after the founding of the Akkadian Empire, which lasted from 2334 BC to 2154 BC, these kings became subject to Sargon of Akkad, who united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speaking peoples of Mesopotamia under one rule.

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Nevalı Çori
Nevalı Çori was an early Neolithic settlement on the middle Euphrates, in the province of Şanlıurfa (Urfa), eastern Turkey. The site is famous for having revealed some of the world's most ancient known temples and monumental sculpture. Together with the site of Göbekli Tepe, it has revolutionised scientific understanding of the Eurasian Neolithic.
The settlement was located about 490 m above sea level, in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, on both banks of the Kantara stream, a tributary of the Euphrates.
The site was examined from 1983 to 1991 in the context of rescue excavations during the erection of the Atatürk Dam below Samsat. Excavations were conducted by a team from the University of Heidelberg under the direction of Professor Harald Hauptmann. Together with numerous other archaeological sites in the vicinity, Nevali Cori has since been inundated by the dammed waters of the Euphrates.
Nevalı Çori could be placed within the local relative chronology on the basis of its flint tools. The occurrence of narrow unretouched Byblos-type points places it on Oliver Aurenche's Phase 3, i.e. early to middle PPNB. Some tools indicate continuity into Phase 4, which is similar in date to Late PPNB. An even finer chronological distinction within Phase 3 is permitted by the settlement's architecture; the house type with underfloor channels, typical of Nevalı Çori strata I-IV, also characterises the "Intermediate Layer" at Çayönü, while the differing plan of the single building in stratum V, House 1, is more clearly connected to the buildings of the "Cellular Plan Layer" at Çayönü.

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Nippur
Coordinates: 32°7′37″N 45°13′51″E / 32.12694°N 45.23083°E / 32.12694; 45.23083
Nippur (Sumerian: Nibru, often logographically recorded as 𒂗𒆤𒆠, EN.LÍL^KI, "Enlil City;"Akkadian: Nibbur) was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities.^{[citation needed]} It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind," ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone. Nippur was located in modern Nuffar in Afak, Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq.
Nippur never enjoyed political hegemony in its own right, but its control was crucial, as it was considered capable of conferring the overall "kingship" on monarchs from other city-states. It was distinctively a sacred city, important from the possession of the famous shrine of Enlil.
According to the Tummal Chronicle, Enmebaragesi, an early ruler of Kish, was the first to build up this temple. His influence over Nippur has also been detected archaeologically. The Chronicle lists successive early Sumerian rulers who kept up intermittent ceremonies at the temple: Aga of Kish, son of Enmebaragesi; Mesannepada of Ur; his son Meskiang-nunna; Gilgamesh of Uruk; his son Ur-Nungal; Nanni of Ur and his son Meskiang-nanna. It also indicates that the practice was revived in Neo-Sumerian times by Ur-Nammu of Ur, and continued until Ibbi-Sin appointed Enmegalana high priest in Uruk (ca. 1950 BC).

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Orontes River
The Orontes (^{[pronunciation?]}; Ὀρόντης) or ‘Āṣī (Arabic: العاصي, Turkish: Asi) is a river of Lebanon, Syria and Turkey.
It was anciently the chief river of the Levant, also called Draco, Typhon and Axius. The last was a native form, from whose revival, or continuous employment in native speech, has preceded the modern name ‘Āṣī ("rebel"), because the river flows from the south to the north unlike the rest of the rivers in the region^{[citation needed]}.
The name Orontes is the Hellenized form of the Iranic (possibly Kurdish) term Harawanta/Harawand/Alwand, meaning "Of greatness, mighty".^{[citation needed]} There are many other rivers and mountains by this same Iranic name in the general area of the Fertile Crescent. These include the Alwand River on Iran-Iraq borders, east of Baghdad, and Mount Alvand to the east of the same river. The name of the eponymous Armenian dynasty, the Orontids springs from the same lexical roots.
The Orontes rises in the great springs of Labweh on the east side of the Beqaa Valley, very near the fountains of the southward-flowing Litani, and it runs due north, parallel with the coast, falling 2000 feet (600 m) through a rocky gorge. Leaving this it expands into the Lake of Homs, having been dammed back in antiquity. The valley now widens out into the rich district of Hamah (Hamaih-Epiphaneia), below which lie the broad meadow-lands of Amykes, containing the sites of ancient Apamea and Larissa. This central Orontes valley ends at the rocky barrier of Jisr al-Hadid, where the river is diverted to the west, and the plain of Antioch opens.

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Parthian Empire
The Parthian (pronounced /ˈpɑrθiən/) Empire (247 BC – 224 AD), also known as the Arsacid (/ˈɑrsəsɪd/) Empire (Modern Persian: اشکانیان Ashkāniān), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Persia. Its latter name comes from Arsaces I of Parthia who, as leader of the Parni tribe, founded it in the mid-3rd century BC when he conquered the Parthia region in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) in rebellion against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I of Parthia (r. c. 171–138 BC) greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now south-eastern Turkey, to eastern Iran. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and Han Empire of China, became a center of trade and commerce.
The Parthians largely adopted the art, architecture, religious beliefs, and royal insignia of their culturally heterogeneous empire, which encompassed Persian, Hellenistic, and regional cultures. For about the first half of its existence, the Arsacid court adopted elements of Greek culture, though it eventually saw a gradual revival of Iranian traditions. The Arsacid rulers were titled the "King of Kings", as a claim to be the heirs to the Achaemenid Empire; indeed, they accepted many local kings as vassals where the Achaemenids would have had centrally appointed, albeit largely autonomous, satraps. The court did appoint a small number of satraps, largely outside Iran, but these satrapies were smaller and less powerful than the Achaemenid potentates. With the expansion of Arsacid power, the seat of central government shifted from Nisa, Turkmenistan to Ctesiphon along the Tigris (south of modern Baghdad, Iraq), although several other sites also served as capitals.

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Persian Empire
The Achaemenid Empire (/ækəˈmɛnɪˌdi/; Old Persian: Parsā, name of ruling dynasty: Haxāmanišiya) (c. 550–330 BCE), sometimes known as First Persian Empire, was an Iranian empire in Southwest Asia, founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation. It expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world which at around 500 BCE stretched from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece making it the biggest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenid Empire would eventually control Egypt as well. It was ruled by a series of monarchs who unified its disparate tribes and nationalities by constructing a complex network of roads.
Calling themselves the Parsa after their original Aryan tribal name Parsua, Persians settled in a land which they named Parsua, bounded on the west by the Tigris River and on the south by the Persian Gulf. This became their heartland for the duration of the Achaemenid Empire. It was from this region that eventually Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II of Persia) would advance to defeat the Median, the Lydian, and the Babylonian Empires, opening the way for subsequent conquests into Egypt and Asia minor.

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Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf is located in Western Asia between Iran (Persia) and the Arabian Peninsula. It is an extension of the Indian Ocean.
The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers. In 1991, the Persian Gulf again was the background for what was called the "Persian Gulf War" or the "Gulf War" when Iraq invaded Kuwait and was subsequently pushed back, despite the fact that this conflict was primarily a land conflict.
The Persian Gulf has many good fishing grounds, extensive coral reefs, and abundant pearl oysters, but its ecology has come under pressure from industrialization, and in particular, oil and petroleum spillages during wars in the region.
Historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes controversially referred to as the Arabian Gulf or simply The Gulf by most Arab states, although neither of the latter two terms are recognized internationally. The name Gulf of Iran (Persian Gulf) is used by the International Hydrographic Organization.

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Ra's al-'Ayn
Ra's al-'Ayn (Arabic: رأس العين‎ Ra's al 'Ayn, Kurdish: Serêkanî, Classical Syriac: ܪܝܫ ܥܝܢܐ‎ Rēṣḥ 'Aynā, Turkish: Resuleyn) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Al-Hasakah Governorate. Ra's al-'Ayn has an altitude of 360 m. It has a population of 55,247, many of them being Assyrian/Syriacs, Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Chechens, or Syrian Turkmen. There is a border crossing to Ceylanpınar in Turkey.
The city has been inhabited from 1500 BC or earlier.
In ancient times it was known as Washukani,Sikan, Resaina, and Theodosiopolis. During the Armenian Genocide many Armenians were deported to the desert death camps of Ra's al-'Ayn, a site that would become "synonymous with Armenian suffering". The city is the birthplace of the popular Syrian dabke musician, Omar Souleyman.
The ancient Neo-Assyrian city of Sikan is on the southern edge of the mound at Ras el 'Ayn. Its location is near the modern-day Tell el Fakhariya, where a famous Neo-Assyrian statue of Adad-it'i/Hadd-yith'i, the king of Guzana and Sikan was discovered in the 1970s, with a bilingual inscription in the Assyrian dialect of Akkadian and Aramaic, the earliest Aramaic inscription. The statue was inscribed as a votive object to Hadad, whose name the donor bore. It is generally dated to around 850 BC, though an 11th century BC date has also been proposed.

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Ramadi
Ramadi (Arabic: الرمادي‎; BGN: Ar Ramādī) is a city in central Iraq, about 110 kilometers (68 mi) west of Baghdad. It is the capital of Al Anbar Governorate. The city outstretched to a distance of more than 60 kilometers on the Euphrates, the largest city in Al-Anbar.
Ramadi's population has been stated as 444,582 according to UN data from 2003. and 483,209 according to UN from 2004.
However, according to the former regime there are about 700,000 inhabitants. Although there was a large Jewish community into the twentieth century, in the 21st century all of the inhabitants of the city are Sunni Muslims from the Dulaim tribe.
Ramadi is located in a fertile, irrigated, alluvial plain, within Iraq's Sunni Triangle. It was founded in 1869 under the Ottoman Empire. The main purpose of the city was to give the Ottomans a focal point to communicate and control the Dulaim tribe of the region.
During the Mesopotamian Campaign of World War I, British forces under Lieutenant General Frederick Stanley Maude took Ramadi. In November 1917, British forces fought what was left of the Ottoman forces there. Sir Maude died soon after Ramadi was taken.

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Ramadi Barrage
Ramadi Barrage is a two-section diversion dam on the Euphrates River adjacent (west) of Ramadi, Iraq. The main purpose of the northern barrage is to slow or stop water if needed, allowing it to be diverted through the southern barrage into a canal. The canal feeds water into Lake Habbaniyah to the southeast.
The intent was to use water stored from the Ramadi Barrage and the Samarra Barrage for irrigation. However, evaporation on Lakes Habbaniyah and Thar Thar lead to reduces storage and high salinity; conditions unsuitable for irrigation.

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Sakarya River
The Sakarya (Turkish: Sakarya Irmağı) is a river in Turkey. It is the third longest river of Turkey, and runs through what in ancient times was known as Phrygia.
The source of the river is the Bayat Yaylası (Bayat Plateau) which is located to the northeast of Afyon. Joined by the Porsuk Çayı (Porsuk Creek) close by the town of Polatlı, the river runs through the Adapazarı Ovası (Adapazarı Plains) before reaching the Black Sea. The Sakarya was once crossed by the Sangarius Bridge, constructed by the East Roman Emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565).
In the Middle Ages, the valley of the Sakarya was the home of the Söğüt tribe, which went on to establish the Ottoman Empire.
Coordinates: 41°07′35″N 30°38′56″E / 41.1264°N 30.6489°E / 41.1264; 30.6489

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Samawah
Samawah or As Samawah (Arabic language:السماوة ) is a city in Iraq, 280 kilometres (174 mi) southeast of Baghdad. .
The city of Samawah is the modern capital of the Al Muthanna Governorate. The city is located midway between Baghdad and Basra, at the northern edge of the governorate. The province was established in 1975; prior to that date it was a unified province along with Qadissiya (Diwaniya) and Najaf.
The city was settled by the Himyarite tribe of Banu Quda'a around the 3rd century AD. It is built on both sides of the Euphrates river; there are four bridges in the centre of town for crossing between the two sides. The west bank of the city contains the commercial heart of the city, and includes the old town and the Jewish quarter, agd al yahood.
The west bank is the site of the covered market Suq Al Masgoof, which dates to the Ottoman period. The area surrounding the market is the old city with its Byzantine maze of crowded markets and streets.
The eastern side of the city including 'Qushla' has a more modern feel and contains a number of estates of apartment blocks built during the 1970s and 1980s, the main stadium which is home to the local Muthanna team, as well as technical colleges and the polytechnic. There too is Al Qushla, the historic "Ottoman Barracks".

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Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia (ⁱ/ˌsaʊdi əˈreɪbi.ə/ or ⁱ/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbi.ə/; Arabic: السعودية‎ as-Su‘ūdīyah^{[citation needed]} or incorrectly as-Sa‘ūdīyah, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic: المملكة العربية السعودية‎ al-Mamlakah al-‘Arabīyah as-Su‘ūdīyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab world, after Algeria. It is bordered by Jordan, and Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south. The Red Sea lies to its west, and the Persian Gulf lies to the east. Saudi Arabia has an area of approximately 2,250,000 km² (870,000 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of 27 million, of which 9 million are registered foreign expatriates and an estimated 2 million are illegal immigrants. Saudi nationals comprise an estimated 16 million people.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as the Al Saud. The Saudi Arabian government, which has been an absolute monarchy since its inception, refers to its system of government as being Islamic, though this is contested by many due to its strong basis in Salafism, a minority school of thought in Islam. The kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam.

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Seyhan River
Coordinates: 36°59′18″N 35°20′5″E / 36.98833°N 35.33472°E / 36.98833; 35.33472
The Seyhan River (formerly written Seihan, Sihun; ancient name: Σάρος, Sarus) is the longest river in Turkey that is flowing into Mediterranean Sea. The river is 560 km and flows southwest from its headwaters in the Tahtalı-Mountains (provinces Sivas and Kayseri) in Anti-Taurus Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea via a broad delta. Its main tributaries are Zamantı and Göksu which unite in Aladağ, Adana to form Seyhan River. Zamantı River originates from Uzun Plateau in Pınarbaşı, Kayseri and crosses Tomarza, Develi and Yahyalı districts of Kayseri.
In ancient times, it was called the Sarus, and its plain was called the Cilician plain.
50 km from its mouth, Seyhan River flows through the city of Adana, the only settlement situated on the river. Several bridges and footbridges cross the river in Adana including Stone Bridge, a 4th century Roman bridge. The river meets Mediterranean Sea at Cape Deli.
The major Seyhan Dam upstream of Adana serves for irrigation, hydroelectric power, and flood control. Yedigöze and Çatalan are the other dams on Seyhan river which also serve the same purposes.

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Shatt al-Arab
Shatt al-Arab (Arabic: شط العرب‎, literally "Coast/Beach of the Arabs") or Arvand Rūd (Persian: اروندرود‎, "Arvand River"), is a river in Southwest Asia of some 200 km (120 mi) in length, formed by the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris in the town of al-Qurnah in the Basra Governorate of southern Iraq. The southern end of the river constitutes the border between Iraq and Iran down to the mouth of the river as it discharges into the Persian Gulf. It varies in width from about 232 metres (761 ft) at Basra to 800 metres (2,600 ft) at its mouth. It is thought that the waterway formed relatively recently in geologic time, with the Tigris and Euphrates originally emptying into the Persian Gulf via a channel further to the west.
The Karun river, a tributary which joins the waterway from the Iranian side, deposits large amounts of silt into the river; this necessitates continuous dredging to keep it navigable.
The area is judged to hold the largest date palm forest in the world. In the mid-1970s, the region included 17 to 18 million date palms, an estimated one-fifth of the world's 90 million palm trees. But by 2002, war, salt, and pests had wiped out more than 14 million of the palms, including around 9 million in Iraq and 5 million in Iran. Many of the remaining 3 to 4 million trees are in poor condition.

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Shuruppak
Coordinates: 31°46′38.51″N 45°30′35.14″E / 31.7773639°N 45.5097611°E / 31.7773639; 45.5097611 Shuruppak or Shuruppag (Sumerian: "The Healing Place") was an ancient Sumerian city situated about 35 miles south of Nippur on the banks of the Euphrates at the site of modern Tell Fara in Iraq's Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate.
Shuruppak was dedicated to Ninlil, also called Sud, the goddess of grain and the air.
Shuruppak became a grain storage and distribution city and had more silos than any other Sumerian city. The earliest excavated levels at Shuruppak date to the Jemdet Nasr period about 3000 BCE; it was abandoned shortly after 2000 BCE. Erich Schmidt found one Isin-Larsa cylinder seal and several pottery plaques which may date to early in the second millennium BC. Surface finds are predominantly Early Dynastic.
At the end of the Uruk period there was an archaeologically attested river flood in Shuruppak. Polychrome pottery from a destruction level below the flood deposit has been dated to the Jemdet Nasr period that immediately preceded the Early Dynastic I period.

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Simav River
The Simav (Turkish: Simav Çayı) or Susurluk River (Susurluk Çayı) is a river in Anatolian Turkey. Its course is 321 km long and its basin comprises 22 400 km². It was the classical Macestus (^{[pronunciation?]}; Greek: Μέκεστος, Mékestos). In the 19th century, it was known as the Mikalick.
The Simav has its source in Kütahya Province, from which it flows north across the plain of Simav into Balıkesir Province. There is a reservoir at the Çaygören Dam, out of which the Simav flows past Susurluk and meets the Adirnas. During the classical period, the Macestus was a tributary of the Rhyndacus (the modern Adirnas), but today the Simav forms the main course from their confluence near Karacabey down to the Sea of Marmara. Along the way, it meets the Nilüfer River (the classical Odrysses).
Its mouth faces the island of Imrali, a high-security prison.
Coordinates: 39°N 29°E / 39°N 29°E / 39; 29

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Sippar
Coordinates: 33°03′32″N 44°15′08″E / 33.058829°N 44.252153°E / 33.058829; 44.252153 (Sippar)
Sippar (Sumerian: Zimbir) was an ancient Near Eastern city on the east bank of the Euphrates river, located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah in Iraq's Babil Governorate, some 60 km north of Babylon and 30 km southeast of Baghdad.
Given that thousands of cuneiform tablets have been recovered at the site, relatively little is known about the history of Sippar. As was often the case in Mesopotamia, it was part of a pair of cities, separated by a river. Sippar was on the east side of the Euphrates, while its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum, was on the west.
While pottery finds indicate that the site of Sippar was in use as early as the Uruk period, substantial occupation occurred only in the Early Dynastic period of the 3rd millennium BC, the Old Babylonian period of the 2nd millennium BC, and the Neo-Babylonian time of the 1st millennium BC. Lesser levels of use continued into the time of the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian Empires.

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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

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Syria
Syria (/ˈsɪriə/ ( listen) SIRR-ee-ə; Arabic: سورية‎ Sūriyya or سوريا Sūryā; Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܐ; Kurdish: Sûrî), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية‎ al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabīyah as-Sūriyyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.
In English, the name Syria was formerly synonymous with the Levant, known in Arabic as Sham, while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, its capital city, Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate, and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
The population of Syria is 74% Sunni, 12% Alawi, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze. Combined, 87% of the Syrian population is Muslim, while the other 10% is Christian, which includes mainly Arab Christians but also Assyrians and Armenians. Major ethnic minorities in Syria include Kurds (9%), Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens and Circassians. The majority of the population is Arab (90%).

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Tell es Sawwan
Coordinates: 34°7′N 43°54′E / 34.117°N 43.9°E / 34.117; 43.9
Tell es-Sawwan (in Salah ad-Din Province, Iraq) was a city in ancient Mesopotamia 110 kilometers north of Baghdad, and south of Samarra.
The site is a primarily Ubaid, Hassuna, and Samarran culture occupation with some later Babylonian graves. It is considered the type site for the Samarran culture.
Tell es-Sawwan is an oval mound 200 metres (660 ft) long by 110 metres (360 ft) wide with a maximum height of 3.5 metres (11 ft). The main mound was surrounded by a defensive ditch. The site was excavated by a team from the Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquites in seven seasons between 1964 and 1971. The second season was led by Khalid Ahmad Al-a'dami and the sixth and seventh season by Walid Yasin.

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Tell Leilan
Tell Leilan is an archaeological site situated near the Wadi Jarrah in the Khabur River basin in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. The site has been occupied since the 5th millennium BC. During the late third millennium, the site was known as Shekhna. Around 1800 BC, the site was renamed Shubat-Enlil by the Assyrian king, Shamshi-Adad I and it became the capital of his state of northern Mesopotamia. Shubat-Enlil was abandoned around 1700 BC.
The city originated around 5000 BC as a small farming village and grew to be a large city ca. 2600 BC, three hundred years before the Akkadian Empire. A 3-foot layer of sediment at Tell Leilan containing no evidence of human habitation offered clues as to the cause of the demise of the Akkadian imperialized city; analysis indicated that at around 2200 BC, a three-century drought was severe enough to affect agriculture and settlement.
The conquest of the region by Shamshi-Adad I (1813–1781 BC) revived the abandoned site of Tell Leilan. Shamshi-Adad saw the great potential in the rich agricultural production of the region and made it the capital city of his empire. He renamed it from Shehna to Shubat-Enlil, or Šubat-Enlil, meaning "the residence of the god Enlil" in the Akkadian language. In the city a royal palace was built and a temple acropolis to which a straight paved street led from the city gate. There was also a planned residential area and the entire city was enclosed by a wall. The city size was about 90 hectares (220 acres). Shubat-Enlil may have had a population of 20,000 people at its peak. The city prospered until the king Samsu-iluna of Babylon sacked it in 1726 BC. Shubat-Enlil was never reoccupied.

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Terme River
The Terme River (Turkish: Terme Çayı; Greek: Θερμώδων, Thermōdōn) is in the border of Terme district, located in central northern Turkey between the cities of Ordu and Samsun. The river flows about 50 km east of the coastal city Samsun into the Black Sea.
The region consists of a fertile, rather secluded, plain. High mountains can be found to the south and east, and the Yeşil River flows in the west.
In Greek mythology, the legendary capital of the Amazons, Themiscyra, was found on the river Thermodon.
Coordinates: 41°12′N 37°02′E / 41.2°N 37.033°E / 41.2; 37.033

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Tigris
The Tigris River (/ˈtaɪɡrɪs/; Arabic: دجله) is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.
The Tigris is 1,850 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 Turkish territory before becoming the border between Syria and Turkey. This stretch of 44 km is the only part of the river that is located in Syria. The remaining 1,418 km are entirely within the Iraqi borders.
The Tigris unites with the Euphrates near Basra, and from this junction to the Persian Gulf the mass of moving water is known as 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 Sumerians. Notable Tigris-side cities included Nineveh, Ctesiphon, and Seleucia, while the city of Lagash was irrigated by the Tigris via a canal dug around 2400 BC.

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Turkey
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.

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Umm Qasr
Umm Qasr (Arabic: أم قصر‎, also transliterated as : Um-qasir, Um-qasser), is a port city in southern Iraq. It stands on the canalised Khawr az-Zubayr, part of the Khawr Abd Allah estuary which leads to the Persian Gulf. It is separated from the border of Kuwait by a small inlet. A bridge across the waterway linked the port with Kuwait prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Umm Qasr was originally a small fishing town, but was used as a military port on several occasions before advancing trades and jobs by building a deep-water port on the coast. It was said to have been the site of Alexander the Great's landing in Mesopotamia in 325 BC. During the Second World War a temporary port was established there by the Allies to unload supplies to dispatch to the Soviet Union. It fell back into obscurity after the war, but the government of King Faisal II sought to establish a permanent port there in the 1950s.
After the Iraqi Revolution of 1958, a naval base was established at Umm Qasr. The port was subsequently founded in 1961 by the Iraqi ruler General Abdul-Karim Qassem. It was intended to serve as Iraq's only "deep water" port, reducing the country's dependence on the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway that marks the border with Iran. The port facilities were built by a consortium of companies from West Germany, Sweden and Lebanon, with a railway line connecting it to Basra and Baghdad. The port opened for business in July 1967.

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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.

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Ur
Coordinates: 30°57′45″N 46°06′11″E / 30.9625°N 46.10306°E / 30.9625; 46.10306 Ur (Sumerian: Urim;Sumerian Cuneiform: 𒋀𒀕𒆠 URIM₂^KI or 𒋀𒀊𒆠 URIM₅^KI;Akkadian: Uru) was an important city-state in ancient Sumer located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate. Once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, Ur is now well inland, south of the Euphrates on its right bank, 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from Nasiriyah.
The city's patron deity was Nanna, the Sumerian moon god, and the name of the city is in origin derived from the god's name, URIM₂^KI being the classical Sumerian spelling of LAK-32.UNUG^KI, literally "the abode (UNUG) of Nanna (LAK-32)".
The site is marked by the ruins of the Ziggurat of Ur, which contained the shrine of Nanna, excavated in the 1930s. The temple was built in the 21st century BC (short chronology), during the reign of Ur-Nammu and was reconstructed in the 6th century BC by Nabonidus. The ruins cover an area of 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) northwest to southeast by 800 metres (2,600 ft) northeast to southwest and rise up to about 20 metres (66 ft) above the present plain level.

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Uruk
Coordinates: 31°19′20″N 45°38′10″E / 31.32222°N 45.63611°E / 31.32222; 45.63611 Uruk (Cuneiform: 𒌷𒀔,^URU UNUG; Sumerian: Unug; Akkadian: Uruk; Aramaic: Erech; Hebrew: Erech; Greek: Ὀρχόη Orchoē, Ὠρύγεια Ōrugeia; Arabic: وركاء‎, Warkā') was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient dry former channel of the Euphrates River, some 30 km east of modern As-Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.
Uruk gave its name to the Uruk period, the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia spanning c. 4000 to 3100 BC, succeeded by the Jemdet Nasr period of Sumer proper. Uruk played a leading role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid 4th millennium BC. At its height c 2900 BC, Uruk probably had 50,000–80,000 residents living in 6 km² of walled area; making it the largest city in the world at the time. The semi-mythical king Gilgamesh, according to the chronology presented in the Sumerian king list, ruled Uruk in the 27th century BC. The city lost its prime importance around 2000 BC, in the context of the struggle of Babylonia with Elam, but it remained inhabited throughout the Seleucid and Parthian periods until it was finally abandoned shortly before or after the Islamic conquest.

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Yağlıdere
Yağlıdere is a town and district of Giresun Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey.
The district covers one end of the Giresun Mountains, including part of the valley of the Yağlıdere stream, which gives the district its name. When the mountain streams that feed the Yağlıdere are in full flood, they can become a threat to the district.
Yağlıdere is an agricultural district. The hillsides are planted with hazelnuts, fruit trees, chestnuts, and other deciduous trees. Some tea and corn are grown, and animals graze on the higher slopes.
The small town of Yağlıdere was founded in 1811 with a marketplace and large mosque. 7,095 people live there. A large portion of the population has migrated to America, especially New York and New Jersey, giving the town its nicknames New Yağlıdere and Little New York.^{[citation needed]}
Yağlıdere means "fat stream". There are two hypotheses regarding the origin of the name. One says that in Cakrak village, an ancient Greek town, people use stone tubes from high parts of village to transport milk to the riverside, or town center, making the river seem fat. Others say that the river is cursed by Saint Hacı Abdullah Halife, who says "be fat, river, and take one person's life every year."^{[citation needed]}

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Yeşilırmak River
The Yeşilırmak (Turkish: Yeşilırmak 'Green River'; classical Greek: Ίρις, Iris) is a river in northern Turkey. From its source north-east of Sivas, it flows past Tokat and Amasya, and reaches the Black Sea at Samsun after 418 km (260 mi).
Its tributaries include the Çekerek (ancient Scylax) and the Kelkit (ancient Lycus).
Strabo's Geographica describes it as flowing through Comana Pontica, the plain of Dazimonitis (Kaşova), and Gaziura before receiving the waters of the Scylax, then flowing through Amaseia (Amasya) before reaching the valley of Phanaroea.
Coordinates: 41°22′54″N 36°39′37″E / 41.3816°N 36.6603°E / 41.3816; 36.6603

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Zagros Mountains
The Zagros Mountains (Arabic: جبال زغروس, Aramaic: ܛܘܪ ܙܪܓܣ, Kurdish: زنجیره‌چیاکانی زاگرۆس, Lurish: کو یه لی زاگروس, Persian: رشته كوه زاگرس‎‎) are the largest mountain range in Iran and Iraq. With a total length of 1,500 km (932 mi), from northwestern Iran, and roughly correlating with Iran's western border, the Zagros range spans the whole length of the western and southwestern Iranian plateau and ends at the Strait of Hormuz. The highest points in the Zagros Mountains are Zard Kuh-bakhtiari and Dena. The Hazaran massif in the Kerman province of Iran forms an eastern outlier of the range, the Jebal Barez reaching into Sistan.
The Zagros fold and thrust belt was formed by collision of two tectonic plates — the Eurasian and Arabian Plates. Recent GPS measurements in Iran have shown that this collision is still active and the resulting deformation is distributed non-uniformly in the country, mainly taken up in the major mountain belts like Alborz and Zagros. A relatively dense GPS network which covered the Zagros in the Iranian part also proves a high rate of deformation within the Zagros. The GPS results show that the current rate of shortening in SE Zagros is ~10 mm/yr and ~5mm/yr in the NW Zagros. The NS strike-slip Kazerun fault divides the Zagros into two distinct zones of deformation. The GPS results also show different shortening directions along the belt, i.e. normal shortening in the South-East and oblique shortening in the NW Zagros.

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Çoruh River
The Çoruh River or Ch'orokhi River (Georgian: ჭოროხი ch'orokhi, Turkish: Çoruh, Armenian: Ճորոխ, Tchorokh, Greek: Άκαμψις, Akampsis) rises in the Mescit Mountains in north-eastern Turkey, flows through the cities of Bayburt, Ispir, Yusufeli, and Artvin, along the Kelkit-Çoruh Fault, before flowing into Georgia, where it reaches the Black Sea just south of Batumi and a few kilometers north of the Turkish-Georgian border.
In Arrian's Periplus Ponti Euxini, it is called the Άκαμψις Acampsis; Pliny may have confused it with the Bathys. In English, it was formerly known as the Boas, the Churuk, or the Chorokh.
The Çoruh valley lies within the Caucasus ecological zone, which is considered by the World Wild Fund for Nature and by Conservation International as a biodiversity hotspot. The Çoruh Valley is recognised by Turkish conservation organisations as an important plant area, an important bird area, a key biodiversity area and has been nominated as a high priority area for protection. This valley is rich in plants and contains 104 nationally threatened plant species of which 67 are endemic to Turkey.

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Şanlıurfa
Şanlıurfa, pronounced [ʃanˈlɯuɾfa], often simply known as Urfa in daily language (Kurdish Riha, Arabic الرها al-Ruhā, Syriac ܐܘܪܗ Urhoy, Armenian Ուռհա Owr'ha), in ancient times Edessa, is a city with 482,323 inhabitants (2009 estimate) in south-eastern Turkey, and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. It is a city with a predominant Kurdish and Turkmen population. Urfa is situated on a plain under big open skies, about eighty kilometres east of the Euphrates River. The climate features extremely hot, dry summers and cool, moist winters.
The city has been known by many names in history: Ուռհա Owr'ha in Armenian, ܐܘܪܗܝ Urhai in Syriac, ره, الرها, al-Ruhā in Arabic and Ορρα, Orrha in Greek (also Ορροα, Orrhoa). For a while it was named Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe (Ancient Greek: Αντιόχεια η επί Καλλιρρόης). During Byzantine rule it was named Justinopolis. Prior to Turkish rule, it was often best known by the name given it by the Seleucids, Εδεσσα, Edessa.
Şanlı (from Arabic shan (شأن) "dignity" + Turkish adjectival suffix -lı) means "great, glorious, dignified" in Turkish, and Urfa was officially renamed Şanlıurfa (Urfa the Glorious) by the Turkish Grand National Assembly in 1984, in recognition of the local resistance in the Turkish War of Independence. The title was achieved following repeated requests by the city's members of parliament, desirous to earn a title similar to those of neighbouring cities 'Gazi' (veteran) Antep and 'Kahraman' (Heroic) Maraş.

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Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, Aléxandros ho Mégas from the Greek αλέξω alexo "to defend, help" + ανήρ aner "man"), was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders.
Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon, to the throne in 336 BC after Philip was assassinated. Upon Philip's death, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's military expansion plans. In 334 BC, he invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.

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Assyrian people
The Assyrian people, most commonly known as Assyrians and other later names, such as: Chaldeans, Syrians, Syriacs (see names of Syriac Christians), are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia. They are Eastern Aramaic speaking Semites who trace their ancestry back to the Sumero-Akkadian civilisation that emerged in Mesopotamia circa 4000- 3500 BC, and in particular to the northern region of the Akkadian lands, which would become known as Assyria by the 24th Century BC. The Assyrian nation existed as an independent state, and often a powerful empire, from the 24th century BC until the end of the 7th century BC.
Today that ancient territory is part of several nations; Assyria remained a Geo-political entity after its fall, and was ruled as an occupied province under the rule of various empires from the late 7th century BC until the mid 7th century AD when it was dissolved, and the Assyrian people have gradually become a minority in their homelands since that time. They are indigenous to, and have traditionally lived all over what is now Iraq, north east Syria, north west Iran, and Southeastern Turkey. They are predominantly Christian.

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Chaldea
Chaldea or Chaldaea ( /kælˈdiːə/), from Greek Χαλδαία, Chaldaia; Akkadian māt Kaldu; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim;Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to rule Babylon briefly. Tribes of settlers who arrived in the region from the 8th Century BC became known as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. The Hebrew Bible uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Septuagint.
The short-lived 11th dynasty of the Kings of Babylon (6th century BC) is conventionally known to historians as the Chaldean Dynasty, although only the first four rulers of this dynasty were known to be Chaldeans, and the last ruler was known not to be. Their kingdom in the southern portion of Babylonia lay chiefly on the right bank of the Euphrates. Though the name came to be commonly used to refer to the whole of southern Mesopotamia, Chaldea proper was in fact the vast plain in the far south east formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris, extending to about four hundred miles along the course of these rivers, and about a hundred miles in average width.

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Darius III of Persia
Darius III (the Great) (c. 380 – 330 BC), also known by his given name of Codomannus, was the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia from 336 BC to 330 BC.
After Artaxerxes III of Persia and all of his sons were killed by the vizier Bagoas, the vizier installed a cousin of Artaxerxes III, Codomannus, to the Persian throne as Darius III. When Darius tried to act independently of the vizier, Bagoas tried to poison him, but Darius was warned and forced Bagoas to drink the poison himself. The new king found himself in control of an unstable empire, large portions of which were governed by jealous and unreliable satraps and inhabited by disaffected and rebellious subjects. However, he lacked the skills and experience to deal with these problems.
In 334 BC, Alexander the Great began his invasion of the Persian Empire and subsequently defeated the Persians in a number of battles before looting and destroying the capital Persepolis, by fire, in 331 BC. With the Persian Empire now effectively under Alexander's control, Alexander then decided to pursue Darius, but Darius was killed by a satrap Bessus before Alexander reached him.

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Hammurabi
Hammurabi (Akkadian from Amorite ʻAmmurāpi, "the kinsman is a healer", from ʻAmmu, "paternal kinsman", and Rāpi, "healer"; (died c. 1750 BC) was the sixth king of Babylon (that is, of the First Babylonian Dynasty) from 1792 BC to 1750 BC middle chronology (1728 BC – 1686 BC short chronology). He became the first king of the Babylonian Empire following the abdication of his father, Sin-Muballit, extending Babylon's control over Mesopotamia by winning a series of wars against neighboring kingdoms. Although his empire controlled all of Mesopotamia at the time of his death, his successors were unable to maintain his empire.
Hammurabi is known for the set of laws called Hammurabi's Code, one of the first written codes of law in recorded history.^{[citation needed]} These laws were inscribed on stone tablets (stelae) standing over eight feet tall (2.4 meters), of unknown provenance, found in Persia in 1901. Owing to his reputation in modern times as an ancient law-giver, Hammurabi's portrait is in many government buildings throughout the world.

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Hittites
The Hittites were a Bronze Age Indo-European speaking people of Anatolia. They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c. the 14th century BC, encompassing a large part of Anatolia, north-western Syria about as far south as the mouth of the Litani River (in present-day Lebanon), and eastward into upper Mesopotamia. The Hittite military made successful use of chariots. By the mid-14th century BC (under king Suppiluliuma I), they had carved out an empire that included most of Asia Minor as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. After c. 1180 BC, the empire disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some surviving until the 8th century BC.
Their Hittite language was a member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Natively, they referred to their land as Hatti, and to their language as Nesili (the language of Nesa). The conventional name "Hittites" is due to their initial identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Despite the use of "Hatti", the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, and spoke a non-Indo-European language known as Hattic.

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Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forager society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species.
Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were hunter-gatherers until around 10,000 years ago. Following the invention of agriculture hunter-gatherers have been displaced by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement, sometimes extensively, their foraging activity with farming and/or keeping animals.
The earliest humans probably lived primarily on scavenging, not actual hunting. Early humans in the Lower Paleolithic lived in mixed habitats which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging. Rather than killing large animals themselves for meat, they used carcasses of large animals killed by other predators or carcasses from animals that died by natural causes.

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Iranian languages
The Iranian languages (also called Iranic languages) form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn are a subgroup of the Indo-European language family. The speakers of Iranian languages are known as Iranian peoples.
The Iranian languages are considered in three stages of Old (until 400 BCE), Middle (400 BCE – 900 CE), and New (since 900 CE). From the Old Iranian languages the better understood and recorded ones are Old Persian (a language of Achaemenid Iran) and Avestan (the language of Zarathushtra). Middle Iranian languages included Middle Persian (a language of Sassanid Iran) and Parthian (a language of Arsacid Iran). There are many Iranian languages, the largest amongst them are Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, and Balochi.
Today, there are an estimated 150–200 million native speakers of Iranian languages. The Ethnologue lists 87 Iranian languages.Persian has about 65 million native speakers, Pashto about 50 million, Kurdish about 18 million, Balochi about 7 million, and Lurish about 2.3 million.

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Iraqi people
The Iraqi people (Arabic: العراقيون ʿIrāqīyūn, Kurdish: گه‌لی عیراق Îraqîyan, Aramaic: ܥܡܐ ܥܝܪܩܝܐ‎ ʿIrāqāyā) or Mesopotamian people (Arabic: شعب بلاد ما بين النهرين) are the native inhabitants of the country of Iraq, (also known as Mesopotamia), and their related diaspora. From late Assyrian and Babylonian times until the early Islamic era, the Iraqi people spoke Aramaic but also witnessed a minority Arab presence.
Arabic had been a minority language in Iraq since the 8th century BC, it was spoken in Hatra in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and by Iraqi Christians in Al-Hirah from the 3rd century, and from the 8th century following the Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia it became the common language of Iraqi Muslims, due to Arabic being the language of the Qur'an and the Caliphate. This change was facilitated by the fact that Arabic being a Semitic language, shared a close resemblance to Iraq's traditional languages of Akkadian and Aramaic. Some of Iraq's Christians and Mandaeans retained dialects of Aramaic, since it remained the liturgical language of their faiths. Kurdish-speaking Iraqis live in the mountainous Zagros region of northeast Iraq to the east of the upper Tigris. The Kurds and Arabs of Mesopotamia have interacted and intermarried for well over a millennium. Modern genetic studies indicate that Iraqi Arabs and Kurds are very closely related. Arabic and Kurdish are Iraq's national languages.

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Iraqi Turkmen
The Iraqi Turkmens (also spelled Turcomans, Turkomens, and Iraqi Turkmans), Iraqi Turks, or Turks of Iraq (Turkish: Irak Türkmenleri/Irak Türkleri) are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq who are the ethnic kin of the Turks. They mainly reside in northern Iraq and share close cultural and linguistic ties with Turkey.
The Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of various waves of Turkic migration to Mesopotamia dating from the 7th century until Ottoman rule. The first wave of migration dates back to the 7th century when some 1,000 Turkmen soldiers were recruited in the Muslim armies of Ubayd-Allah ibn Ziyad; however, most of today's descendants of these first migrants have been assimilated into the local Arab population. The second wave of migrants were the Turks of the Great Seljuq Empire; finally, the third wave, and largest number of Turkmen migrants into Iraq arose during the Ottoman Empire. With the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534, followed by Sultan Murad IV's capture of Baghdad in 1638, a large influx of Turks settled down in the region. Thus, most of today's Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders and civil servants who were brought into Iraq during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

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John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray, FRS (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828).
Gray was Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum in London from 1840 until Christmas 1874, before the Natural History holdings were split off to the Natural History Museum. He published several catalogues of the museum collections that included comprehensive discussions of animal groups as well as descriptions of new species. He improved the zoological collections to make them amongst the best in the world.
Gray was born in Walsall, but his family soon moved to London, where Gray studied medicine. He assisted his father in writing The Natural Arrangement of British Plants (1821). After being blackballed by the Linnean Society he turned his interest from botany to zoology.^{[citation needed]} He began his zoological career by volunteering to collect insects for the British Museum at age 15. He officially joined the Zoological Department in 1824 to help John George Children catalog the reptile collection. In 1840 he took over from Children as Keeper of Zoology, which he continued for 35 years, publishing well over 1000 papers. He named many cetacean species, genera, subfamilies, and families.

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Juris Zarins
Juris Zarins (Zariņš) (b. Germany 1945) is an American-Latvian archaeologist and professor at Missouri State University, who specializes in the Middle East.
Zarins is ethnically Latvian, but was born in Germany at the end of the Second World War. His parents emigrated to the United States soon after he was born. He graduated from high school in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1963 and earned a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Nebraska in 1967. He served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam before completing his Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Archaeology at the University of Chicago in 1974. He then served as archaeological adviser to the Department of Antiquities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia before coming to Missouri State in 1978.
Zarins has extensive experience in archaeological fieldwork in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Oman, and is now involved in a new project in Yemen. He was chief archaeologist for the Transarabia Expedition which made the famous discovery of the ancient city of Ubar in 1992. This made the headline of the New York Times, and it was also named one of the ten most important discoveries of the year by Discover, Time, and Newsweek magazines. The expedition was featured in a NOVA program called "In Search of the Lost City," which was first broadcast in 1996.

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Kingdom of Iraq
The Kingdom of Iraq (Arabic: المملكة العراقية‎ al-Mamlakah al-'Irāqiyyah) was officially declared as an independent state in 1932, granting full sovereign rights to Hashemites and ending the British Mandate regime.
Although the League of Nations mandate was awarded to Britain in 1920, the 1920 Iraqi revolt resulted in the scrapping of the original mandate plan in favor of British administered semi-independent kingdom, under the Hashemite allies of Britain. The kingdom of Iraq was granted full independence in 1932, following the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty (1930).
The kingdom ended in 1958, when the monarchy was over thrown in a military coup, led by Abd al-Karim Qasim.
Mandatory Mesopotamia was created under the League of Nations Class A mandate under Article 22 and entrusted to Britain, when the Ottoman Empire was divided in August 1920 by the Treaty of Sèvres, following World War I. This award was prepared on April 25, 1920, at the San Remo conference in Italy. France controlled the Mandates of Syria and Lebanon. Faisal ibn Husayn, who had been proclaimed King of Syria by a Syrian National Congress in Damascus in March 1920, was ejected by the French in July of the same year. Faisal was then granted the territory of Iraq, to rule it as a kingdom, with the British RAF retaining certain military control, though de facto, the territory remained under British Mandate until 1932.

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Kurds in Syria
Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria making up 9% of the country's population. Most of them are Sunni Muslims; there are also Yazidi and Yarsan Kurds in Syria and small numbers of Christians and Alawis. They face routine discrimination and harassment by the Syrian government.
The majority of Kurds in Syria originally came from Turkey in the 1920s. The community in Syria is quite small compared to their compatriots in Iran, Iraq and Turkey. However in the years 1980-1990, Kurds in Syria changed their tactics. During this period, violent clashes of community members with authorities resulted in mass arrests and deaths in 1986 and 1992.
Considering that the State department and CIA did not acknowledge the existence of the Kurds in Syria in 1970s and 1980s, Syrian government officially does not acknowledge the existence of Kurds in Syria, and lack of transparent census in Syria; it would be difficult to predicate the true and accurate percentage.
Kurds mostly live in a geocultural region in northeastern Syria. This region covers the greater part of the governorate of Al Hasakah (formerly the Al-Jazira province), a region also inhabited by many Assyrians. The main cities in this region are Al-Qamishli and Al Hasakah. Another region with significant Kurdish population is Kobanê (Ayn al-Arab) in the northern part of Syria near the town of Jarabulus. The Kurdish-inhabited northern and northeastern parts of Syria in Kurdish are called "Kurdistana Binxetê". An area of Kurdish concentration is Kurd-Dagh in the northwest, around the town of Afrin in Aleppo Governorate, a region that extends to the Turkish districts Islahiye and Kırıkhan. Also many Kurds live in metropolitan areas and large cities of the country, e.g. the neighborhood of Rukn al-Din in Damascus, formerly known as Hayy al Akrad (Quarter of the Kurds).

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Mandaeans
Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Modern Mandaic: Mandaʻiūtā‎ (מנדעיותא); Arabic: مندائية‎ Mandāʼīyah/Mandāʾiyyah; Persian: مندائیان‎ Mandâ'iyân) is a gnostic religion^{[citation needed]} (Aramaic manda means "knowledge", as does Greek gnosis) with a strongly dualistic worldview.
Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist, but reject Jesus of Nazareth and are hostile to Christianity. They are sometimes identified with mentions in the Quran of the Sabian religion, particularly in an Arabian context, but the Sabian religious community is extinct today.
According to most scholars, Mandaeans migrated from the Southern Levant to Mesopotamia in the first centuries CE and are certainly of pre-Arab and pre-Islamic origin. They are Semites and speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. They may well be related to the "Nabateans of Iraq" who were pagan, Aramaic speaking indigenous pre-Arab and pre-Islamic inhabitants of southern Iraq.

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Mandaeism
Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Modern Mandaic: Mandaʻiūtā‎ (מנדעיותא); Arabic: مندائية‎ Mandāʼīyah/Mandāʾiyyah; Persian: مندائیان‎ Mandâ'iyân) is a gnostic religion^{[citation needed]} (Aramaic manda means "knowledge", as does Greek gnosis) with a strongly dualistic worldview.
Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist, but reject Jesus of Nazareth and are hostile to Christianity. They are sometimes identified with mentions in the Quran of the Sabian religion, particularly in an Arabian context, but the Sabian religious community is extinct today.
According to most scholars, Mandaeans migrated from the Southern Levant to Mesopotamia in the first centuries CE and are certainly of pre-Arab and pre-Islamic origin. They are Semites and speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. They may well be related to the "Nabateans of Iraq" who were pagan, Aramaic speaking indigenous pre-Arab and pre-Islamic inhabitants of southern Iraq.

wn.com/Mandaeism
Marc van de Mieroop
Marc Van de Mieroop (PhD Yale 1983) is a professor (full professor 1996) of Ancient Near Eastern history at Columbia University.
In addition to his articles and translations, his book publications include:

wn.com/Marc_van_de_Mieroop
Medes
The Medes (/midz/) (from Old Persian Māda-) were an ancient Iranian people who lived in Iran in an area known as Media and spoke a northwestern Iranian language referred to as the Median language. Their arrival to the region is associated with the first wave of Iranian tribes in the late second millennium BCE (the Bronze Age collapse) through the beginning of the first millennium BCE.
In the 7th century BCE a unified Median state was formed which together with Babylonia, Lydia, and Egypt became one of the four major powers of the ancient Near East. An alliance with the Babylonians helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BCE which resulted in the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes were subsequently able to establish their Median kingdom (with Ecbatana as their royal centre) beyond their original homeland (central-western Iran) and had eventually a territory stretching roughly from northeastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. The Median kingdom was conquered in 550 BCE by Cyrus the Great who established the next Iranian dynasty—the Achaemenid Empire.

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Ofer Bar-Yosef
Ofer Bar-Yosef (born 1937) is an Israeli archaeologist whose main field of study has been the Palaeolithic period.
He was Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the institution where he originally studied archaeology at undergraduate and post-graduate levels in the 1960s. In 1988, he moved to the United States of America where he became Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Harvard University as well as Curator of Palaeolithic Archaeology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
He has excavated widely on prehistoric Levantine sites including Kebara Cave, the early Neolithic village of Netiv HaGdud, as well as on Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites in China and the Republic of Georgia.

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Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire or Turkish Empire or Sublime Ottoman State or sometimes also referred to as Turkey (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِيّهٔ عُثمَانِیّه Devlet-i ʿAliyye-yi ʿOsmâniyye (also عثمانلى دولتى Osmanlı Devleti),Modern Turkish: Osmanlı Devleti or Osmanlı İmparatorluğu) was a Turkish empire which lasted from 27 July 1299 to 1 November 1922, when the Sultanate was abolished.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest lasting empires in history; such that the Ottoman State, its politics, conflicts, and cultural heritage in a vast geography provide one of the longest continuous narratives. During the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular at the height of its power under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the empire was one of the most powerful states in the world – a multinational, multilingual empire that stretched from the southern borders of the Holy Roman Empire to the outskirts of Vienna, Royal Hungary (modern Slovakia) and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the north to Yemen and Eritrea in the south; from Algeria in the west to Azerbaijan in the east; controlling much of southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. At the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states, some of which were later absorbed into the empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries.

wn.com/Ottoman_Empire
Parliament of Syria
Coordinates: 33°31′4.99″N 35°17′35.60″E / 33.5180528°N 35.293222°E / 33.5180528; 35.293222
The People's Council (Arabic: مجلس الشعب‎, Majlis al-Sha'ab) is Syria's legislative authority. It has 250 members elected for a four year term in 15 multi-seat constituencies. There are two main political fronts; the National Progressive Front and Popular Front for Change and Liberation. The presidential candidate is appointed by the parliament and needs to be confirmed for a seven year term in a referendum.
Syrian parliamentary election, 2012

wn.com/Parliament_of_Syria
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.
As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraq's economy to grow at a rapid pace. Positions of power in the country were filled with Sunnis, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.

wn.com/Saddam_Hussein
Syrian people
The Syrian people (Arabic: الشعب السوري‎ / ALA-LC: al-sha‘ab al-Sūrī) are the inhabitants and citizens of Syria and are, overall an indigenous Eastern Mediterranean people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history, they are, in fact, largely a blend of the various Aramaic speaking groups indigenous to the region who were Arabized when Muslim Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula arrived and settled following the Arab expansion. Syrians are tied together by geography, linguistic heritage, religion, and similar Eastern Mediterranean ethnicities. Most Syrians reside primarily in Syria; however 17 million Syrians live outside of Syria and they stay connected to their cultural roots by watching Syrian satellite television, listening to Syrian music and preparing Syrian cuisine.
Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the most continuously inhabited cities in the world (for 8000 years straight, Syrians inhabited Damascus), and a large percentage of Damascenes are the descendents of the early inhabitants of Damascus.

wn.com/Syrian_people
William Willcocks
Sir William Willcocks KCMG (27 September 1852, India – 28 July 1932, Cairo, Egypt) was a British civil engineer. He is remembered as a renowned irrigation engineer, having proposed the first Aswan Dam and undertaken major projects of irrigation in South Africa and Turkey.
A graduate of the Thomason College of Civil Engineering, Roorkee 1872 batch. He was one of the four sons of a British Engineer posted in Roorkee for Ganges canal works. He joined the Indian Public Works Department in 1872, and by 1883 began work with the Egyptian Public Works Department. He was serving as director general of reservoirs for Egypt when he completed his studies and plans in 1896 to construct the Aswan Dam. He supervised its construction from 1898 to its completion in 1902. He also designed and constructed another dam on the Nile, the Assiut Barrage, also completed in 1902. He later became chairman of the Cairo Water Works Company and was also president of the Anglo-Egyptian Land Allotments Company which was instrumental for the urbanization of Zamalek district (then known as Gezireh) early in the 20th century. One of the streets of Zamalek was named 'Willcocks' after him. He left his position in Egypt by 1897 and four years later he was invited to South Africa. With the end of the Anglo-Boer War he was asked to look into the possibility of irrigation projects in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. Part of his plans were implemented and for this he was granted the title of KCMG.

wn.com/William_Willcocks
World War I
World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war). These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.

wn.com/World_War_I

Euphrates - Commodore 64

A former trio of Iraqi-Canadians from Montreal. Lead MC, The Narcicyst doing it solo, at w...

published: 18 Mar 2008

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For the song "River Euphrates" by the Pixies, see Surfer Rosa.

Coordinates: 31°0′18″N 47°26′31″E / 31.005°N 47.44194°E

Euphrates
Arabic: الفرات‎: al-Furāt^[1], Turkish: Fırat^[1], Kurdish: Firat, Syriac: ܦܪܬ: Prath, Hebrew: פרת‎ Prat
River
The Euphrates near Halabiye (Syria); the site can be seen in the background on the left bank
Name origin: from Greek, from Old Persian Ufrātu, from Elamite ú-ip-ra-tu-iš

Countries	Iraq, Syria, Turkey
Basin area	Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait

Tributaries
- left	Balikh, Khabur
- right	Sajur
Cities	Birecik, Ar-Raqqah, Deir ez-Zor, Mayadin, Haditha, Ramadi, Habbaniyah, Fallujah, Kufa, Samawah, Nasiriyah
Landmarks	Lake Assad, Lake Qadisiyah, Lake Habbaniyah


Source
- location	Murat Su, Turkey
- elevation	3,520 m (11,549 ft)
Secondary source
- location	Kara Su, Turkey
- elevation	3,290 m (10,794 ft)
Source confluence
- location	Keban, Turkey
- elevation	610 m (2,001 ft)
Mouth	Shatt al-Arab
- location	Al-Qurnah, Basra Governorate, Iraq
- coordinates	31°0′18″N 47°26′31″E / 31.005°N 47.44194°E / 31.005; 47.44194

Length	2,800 km (1,740 mi) approx.
Basin	500,000 km² (193,051 sq mi) approx.
Discharge	for Hīt
- average	356 m³/s (12,572 cu ft/s)
- max	2,514 m³/s (88,781 cu ft/s)
- min	58 m³/s (2,048 cu ft/s)

Map of the combined Tigris–Euphrates drainage basin (in yellow)
Wikimedia Commons: Euphrates

The Euphrates (ⁱ/juːˈfreɪtiːz/; Arabic: الفرات‎: al-Furāt, Hebrew: פרת‎: Prat, Turkish: Fırat, Kurdish: Firat) 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. Originating in eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf.

1 Etymology
2 Course
- 2.1 Discharge of the Euphrates
- 2.2 Tributaries
3 Watershed
4 Natural history
5 River modifications
- 5.1 Environmental and social effects
6 History
7 Economy
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References

Etymology [link]

The Ancient Greek form Euphrátēs was borrowed from Old Persian Ufrātu,^[2] itself from Elamite ú-ip-ra-tu-iš. In Akkadian the river was similarly called Purattu,^[3] which has been perpetuated in Semitic languages (cf. Syriac P(ə)rāṯ, Arabic al-Furrāt) and in other nearby languages of the time (cf. Hurrian Puranti, Sabarian Uruttu). The Elamite, Akkadian, and possibly Sumerian forms are from an unrecorded substrate language.^[4]

The earliest references to the Euphrates come from cuneiform texts found in Shuruppak and pre-Sargonic Nippur in southern Iraq and date to the mid-3rd millennium BCE. In these texts, written in Sumerian, the Euphrates is called Buranuna (logographic: UD.KIB.NUN). The name could also be written KIB.NUN.(NA) or ^dKIB.NUN, with the prefix "^d" indicating that the river was a divinity. In Sumerian, the name of the city of Sippar in modern-day Iraq was also a written UD.KIB.NUN, indicating a historically strong relationship between the city and the river.

Course [link]

The Euphrates is the longest river of Western Asia.^[5] It emerges from the confluence of the Kara Su or Western Euphrates (450 kilometres (280 mi)) and the Murat Su or Eastern Euphrates (650 kilometres (400 mi)) 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) upstream from the town of Keban in southeastern Turkey.^[6] Daoudy and Frenken put the length of the Euphrates from the source of the Murat River to the confluence with the Tigris at 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi), of which 1,230 kilometres (760 mi) falls in Turkey, 710 kilometres (440 mi) in Syria and 1,060 kilometres (660 mi) in Iraq.^[7]^[8] The same figures are given by Isaev and Mikhailova.^[9] The length of the Shatt al-Arab, which connects the Euphrates and the Tigris with the Persian Gulf, is given by various sources as 145–195 kilometres (90–121 mi).^[10]

Both the Kara Su and the Murat Su rise northwest from Lake Van at elevations of 3,290 metres (10,790 ft) and 3,520 metres (11,550 ft) amsl, respectively.^[11] At the location of the Keban Dam, the two rivers, now combined into the Euphrates, have dropped to an elevation of 693 metres (2,274 ft) amsl. From Keban to the Syrian–Turkish border, the river drops another 368 metres (1,207 ft) over a distance of less than 600 kilometres (370 mi). Once the Euphrates enters the Upper Mesopotamian plains, its grade drops significantly; within Syria the river falls 163 metres (535 ft) while over the last stretch between Hīt and the Shatt al-Arab the river drops only 55 metres (180 ft).^[6]^[12]

Discharge of the Euphrates [link]

The Euphrates receives most of its water in the form of rainfall and melting snow, resulting in peak volumes during the months April through May. Discharge in these two months accounts for 36 percent of the total annual discharge of the Euphrates, or even 60–70 percent according to one source, while low runoff occurs in summer and autumn.^[9]^[13] The average natural annual flow of the Euphrates has been determined from early- and mid-twentieth century records as 20.9 cubic kilometres (5.0 cu mi) at Keban, 36.6 cubic kilometres (8.8 cu mi) at Hīt and 21.5 cubic kilometres (5.2 cu mi) at Hindiya.^[14] However, these averages mask the high inter-annual variability in discharge; at Birecik, just above the Syro–Turkish border, annual discharges have been measured that ranged from a low volume of 15.3 cubic kilometres (3.7 cu mi) in 1961 to a high 42.7 cubic kilometres (10.2 cu mi) in 1963.^[15]

The discharge regime of the Euphrates has changed dramatically since the construction of the first dams in the 1970s. Data on Euphrates discharge collected after 1990 show the impact of the construction of the numerous dams in the Euphrates and of the increased withdrawal of water for irrigation. Average discharge at Hīt after 1990 has dropped to 356 cubic metres (12,600 cu ft) per second (11.2 cubic kilometres (2.7 cu mi) per year). The seasonal variability has equally changed. The pre-1990 peak volume recorded at Hīt was 7,510 cubic metres (265,000 cu ft) per second, while after 1990 it is only 2,514 cubic metres (88,800 cu ft) per second. The minimum volume at Hīt remained relatively unchanged, rising from 55 cubic metres (1,900 cu ft) per second before 1990 to 58 cubic metres (2,000 cu ft) per second afterward.^[16]^[17]

Tributaries [link]

View of the Murat River

In Syria, three rivers add their water to the Euphrates; the Sajur, the Balikh and the Khabur. These rivers rise in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains along the Syro–Turkish border and add comparatively little water to the Euphrates. The Sajur is the smallest of these tributaries; emerging from two streams near Gaziantep and draining the plain around Manbij before emptying into the reservoir of the Tishrin Dam. The Balikh receives most of its water from a karstic spring near 'Ayn al-'Arus and flows due south until it reaches the Euphrates at the city of Ar-Raqqah. In terms of length, drainage basin and discharge, the Khabur is the largest of these three. Its main karstic springs are located around Ra's al-'Ayn, from where the Khabur flows southeast past Al-Hasakah, where the river turns south and drains into the Euphrates near Busayrah. Once the Euphrates enters Iraq, there are no more natural tributaries to the Euphrates, although canals connecting the Euphrates basin with the Tigris basin exist.^[18]^[19]

Name	Length	Watershed size	Discharge	Bank
Kara Su	450 km (280 mi)	22,000 km² (8,500 sq mi)		Confluence
Murat River	650 km (400 mi)	40,000 km² (15,000 sq mi)		Confluence
Sajur River	108 km (67 mi)	2,042 km² (788 sq mi)	4.1 m³/s (145 cu ft/s)	Right
Balikh River	100 km (62 mi)	14,400 km² (5,600 sq mi)	6 m³/s (212 cu ft/s)	Left
Khabur River	486 km (302 mi)	37,081 km² (14,317 sq mi)	45 m³/s (1,600 cu ft/s)	Left

Watershed [link]

French map from the 17th century showing the Euphrates and the Tigris

Further information: Tigris–Euphrates river system

The drainage basins of the Kara Su and the Murat River cover an area of 22,000 square kilometres (8,500 sq mi) and 40,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi), respectively.^[6] The estimates that have been made for the area of the Euphrates drainage basin vary widely; from a low 233,000 square kilometres (90,000 sq mi) to a high 766,000 square kilometres (296,000 sq mi).^[9] Recent estimates put the basin area at 388,000 square kilometres (150,000 sq mi),^[6] 444,000 square kilometres (171,000 sq mi)^[7]^[20] and 579,314 square kilometres (223,674 sq mi).^[21] The greater part of the Euphrates basin is located in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. According to both Daoudy and Frenken, Turkey's share is 28 percent, Syria's is 17 percent and that of Iraq is 40 percent.^[7]^[8] Isaev and Mikhailova estimate the percentages of the drainage basin lying within Turkey, Syria and Iraq at 33, 20 and 47 percent respectively.^[9] Some sources estimate that approximately 15 percent of the drainage basin is located within Saudi Arabia, while a small part falls inside the borders of Kuwait.^[7]^[8] Finally, some sources also include Jordan in the drainage basin of the Euphrates; a small part of the eastern desert (220 square kilometres (85 sq mi)) drains toward the east rather than to the west.^[9]^[22]

Natural history [link]

River modifications [link]

Main articles: Dams in Iraq, Tabqa Dam, and Southeastern Anatolia Project

Map (in French) showing the locations of dams and barrages built in the Syro–Turkish part of the Euphrates basin

The Hindiya Barrage on the Iraqi Euphrates, based on plans by the British civil engineer William Willcocks and finished in 1913, was the first modern water diversion structure built in the Tigris–Euphrates river system.^[31] The Hindiya Barrage was followed in the 1950s by the Ramadi Barrage and the nearby Abu Dibbis Regulator, which serve to regulate the flow regime of the Euphrates and to discharge excess flood water into the depression that is now Lake Habbaniyah. Iraq’s largest dam on the Euphrates is the Haditha Dam; a 9-kilometre (5.6 mi) long earth-fill dam creating Lake Qadisiyah.^[32] Syria and Turkey built their first dams in the Euphrates in the 1970s. The Tabqa Dam in Syria was completed in 1973 while Turkey finished the Keban Dam, a prelude to the immense Southeastern Anatolia Project, in 1974. Since then, Syria has built two more dams in the Euphrates, the Baath Dam and the Tishrin Dam, and plans to build a fourth dam – the Halabiye Dam – between Ar-Raqqah and Deir ez-Zor.^[33] The Tabqa Dam is Syria's largest dam and its reservoir (Lake Assad) is an important source of irrigation and drinking water. It was planned that 640,000 hectares (2,500 sq mi) should be irrigated from Lake Assad, but in 2000 only 100,000–124,000 hectares (390–480 sq mi) had been realized.^[34]^[35] Syria also built three smaller dams on the Khabur and its tributaries.^[36]

With the implementation of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (Turkish: Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, or GAP) in the 1970s, Turkey launched an ambitious plan to harness the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates for irrigation and hydroelectricity production and provide an economic stimulus to its southeastern provinces.^[37] GAP affects a total area of 75,000 square kilometres (29,000 sq mi) and approximately 7 million people; representing about 10 percent of Turkey's total surface area and population, respectively. When completed, GAP will consist of 22 dams – including the Keban Dam – and 19 power plants and provide irrigation water to 1,700,000 hectares (6,600 sq mi) of agricultural land, which is about 20 percent of the irrigable land in Turkey.^[38] Circa 910,000 hectares (3,500 sq mi) of this irrigated land is located in the Euphrates basin.^[39] By far the largest dam in GAP is the Atatürk Dam, located circa 55 kilometres (34 mi) northwest of Şanlıurfa. This 184-metre (604 ft) high and 1,820-metre (5,970 ft) long dam was completed in 1992; thereby creating a reservoir that is the third-largest lake in Turkey. With a maximum capacity of 48.7 cubic kilometres (11.7 cu mi), the Atatürk Dam reservoir is large enough to hold the entire annual discharge of the Euphrates.^[40] Completion of GAP was scheduled for 2010 but has been delayed because the World Bank has withheld funding due to the lack of an official agreement on water sharing between Turkey and the downstream states on the Euphrates and the Tigris.^[41]

Apart from barrages and dams, Iraq has also created an intricate network of canals connecting the Euphrates with Lake Habbaniyah, Lake Tharthar, and Abu Dibbis reservoir; all of which can be used to store excess floodwater. Via the Shatt al-Hayy, the Euphrates is connected with the Tigris. The largest canal in this network is the Main Outfall Drain or so-called "Third River;" constructed between 1953 and 1992. This 565-kilometre (351 mi) long canal is intended to drain the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris south of Baghdad to prevent soil salinization from irrigation. It also allows large freight barges to navigate up to Baghdad.^[42]^[43]^[44]

Environmental and social effects [link]

A large dam with water outlets in a mountainous landscape

Keban Dam in Turkey, the first dam on the Euphrates after it emerges from the confluence of the Kara Su and the Murat Su

A large ruinous castle with concentric walls and towers located on an island that is connected to the shore by a causeway

Qal'at Ja'bar in Syria, once perched on a hilltop overlooking the Euphrates valley but now turned into an island by the flooding of Lake Assad

The construction of the dams and irrigation schemes on the Euphrates has had a significant impact on the environment and society of each riparian country. The dams constructed as part of GAP – in both the Euphrates and the Tigris basins – have affected 382 villages and almost 200,000 people have been resettled elsewhere. The largest number of people was displaced by the building of the Atatürk Dam, which alone affected 55,300 people.^[45] A survey among those who were displaced showed that the majority were unhappy with their new situation and that the compensation they had received was considered insufficient.^[46] The flooding of Lake Assad led to the forced displacement of circa 4,000 families, who were resettled in other parts of northern Syria as part of a now abandoned plan to create an "Arab belt" along the borders with Turkey and Iraq.^[47]^[48]^[49]

Apart from the changes in the discharge regime of the river, the numerous dams and irrigation projects have also had other effects on the environment. The creation of reservoirs with large surfaces in countries with high average temperatures has led to increased evaporation; thereby reducing the total amount of water that is available for human use. Annual evaporation from reservoirs has been estimated at 2 cubic kilometres (0.48 cu mi) in Turkey, 1 cubic kilometre (0.24 cu mi) in Syria and 5 cubic kilometres (1.2 cu mi) in Iraq.^[50] Water quality in the Iraqi Euphrates is low because irrigation water tapped in Turkey and Syria flows back into the river, together with dissolved fertilizer chemicals used on the fields.^[51] The salinity of Euphrates water in Iraq has increased as a result of upstream dam construction, leading to lower suitability as drinking water.^[52] The many dams and irrigation schemes, and the associated large-scale water abstraction, have also had a detrimental effect on the ecologically already fragile Mesopotamian Marshes and on freshwater fish habitats in Iraq.^[53]^[54]

The inundation of large parts of the Euphrates valley, especially in Turkey and Syria, has led to the flooding of many archaeological sites and other places of cultural significance.^[55] Although concerted efforts have been made to record or save as much of the endangered cultural heritage as possible, many sites are probably lost forever. The combined GAP projects on the Turkish Euphrates have led to major international efforts to document the archaeological and cultural heritage of the endangered parts of the valley. Especially the flooding of Zeugma with its unique Roman mosaics by the reservoir of the Birecik Dam has generated much controversy in both the Turkish and international press.^[56]^[57] The construction of the Tabqa Dam in Syria led to a large international campaign coordinated by UNESCO to document the heritage that would disappear under the waters of Lake Assad. Archaeologists from numerous countries excavated sites ranging in date from the Natufian to the Abbasid period, and two minarets were dismantled and rebuilt outside the flood zone. Important sites that have been flooded or affected by the rising waters of Lake Assad include Mureybet, Emar and Abu Hureyra.^[58] A similar international effort was made when the Tishrin Dam was constructed, which led, among others, to the flooding of the important Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site of Jerf el-Ahmar.^[59] An archaeological survey and rescue excavations were also carried out in the area flooded by Lake Qadisiya in Iraq.^[60] Parts of the flooded area have recently become accessible again due to the drying up of the lake, resulting not only in new possibilities for archaeologists to do more research, but also providing opportunities for looting, which has been rampant elsewhere in Iraq in the wake of the 2003 invasion.^[61]

History [link]

Further information: History of Mesopotamia and History of Iraq

Palaeolithic to Chalcolithic periods [link]

The early occupation of the Euphrates basin was limited to its upper reaches; that is, the area that is popularly known as the Fertile Crescent. Acheulean stone artifacts have been found in the Sajur basin and in the El Kowm oasis in the central Syrian steppe; the latter together with remains of Homo erectus that were dated to 450,000 years old.^[62]^[63] In the Taurus Mountains and the upper part of the Syrian Euphrates valley, early permanent villages such as Abu Hureyra – at first occupied by hunter-gatherers but later by some of the earliest farmers, Jerf el-Ahmar, Mureybet and Nevalı Çori became established from the eleventh millennium BCE onward.^[64] In the absence of irrigation, these early farming communities were limited to areas where rainfed agriculture was possible, that is, the upper parts of the Syrian Euphrates as well as Turkey.^[65] Late Neolithic villages, characterized by the introduction of pottery in the early 7th millennium BCE, are known throughout this area.^[66] Occupation of lower Mesopotamia started in the 6th millennium and is generally associated with the introduction of irrigation, as rainfall in this area is insufficient for dry agriculture. Evidence for irrigation has been found at several sites dating to this period, including Tell es-Sawwan.^[67] During the 5th millennium BCE, or late Ubaid period, northeastern Syria was dotted by small villages, although some of them grew to a size of over 10 hectares (25 acres).^[68] In Iraq, sites like Eridu and Ur were already occupied during the Ubaid period.^[69] Clay boat models found at Tell Mashnaqa along the Khabur indicate that riverine transport was already practiced during this period.^[70] The Uruk period, roughly coinciding with the 4th millennium BCE, saw the emergence of truly urban settlements across Mesopotamia. Cities like Tell Brak and Uruk grew to over 100 hectares (250 acres) in size and displayed monumental architecture.^[71] The spread of southern Mesopotamian pottery, architecture and sealings far into Turkey and Iran has generally been interpreted as the material reflection of a widespread trade system aimed at providing the Mesopotamian cities with raw materials. Habuba Kabira on the Syrian Euphrates is a prominent example of a settlement that is interpreted as an Uruk colony.^[72]^[73]

Ancient history [link]

A wide valley with a meandering river and a straight canal branching off and flowing through a circular city with two concentric city walls, surrounded by agricultural fields

Artist's impression of Mari during the 3rd–2nd millennia BCE

During the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods (3100–2350 BCE), southern Mesopotamia experienced a growth in the number and size of settlements, suggesting strong population growth. These settlements, including sites like Sippar, Uruk and Kish, were organized in competing city-states.^[74] Many of these cities were located along canals of the Euphrates and the Tigris that have since dried up, but that can still be identified from remote sensing imagery.^[75] A similar development took place in Upper Mesopotamia, although only in the second part of the 3rd millennium and on a smaller scale than in Lower Mesopotamia. Sites like Mari and Tell Leilan grew to prominence for the first time during this period.^[76] Large parts of the Euphrates basin were for the first time united under a single ruler during the Akkadian and Ur III empires, which controlled – either directly or indirectly through vassals – large parts of modern-day Iraq and northeastern Syria.^[77] Following their collapse, Mari asserted its power over northeast Syria while southern Mesopotamia was controlled by city-states like Isin and Larsa before their territories were absorbed by Babylon under Hammurabi in the 18th century BCE.^[78] In the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, the Euphrates basin was divided between Kassite Babylon in the south and Mitanni in the north, with the latter being eventually replaced by Assyria and the Hittite Empire.^[79] Following the collapse of the Hittite Empire and the reduction in power of Assyria and Babylonia during the 12th century BCE, struggles broke out between Babylonia and Assyria over the control of the Iraqi Euphrates basin. The Neo-Assyrian Empire eventually emerged victorious out of this conflict and also succeeded in gaining control of the northern Euphrates basin in the first half of the 1st millennium BCE.^[80] In the centuries to come, control of the wider Euphrates basin shifted from the Neo-Assyrian Empire to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the 7th century and to the Achaemenids in the 6th century BCE.^[81] The Achaemenid Empire was in turn overran by Alexander the Great, who defeated the last king Darius III and died in Babylon in 323 BCE.^[82] For several centuries, the river formed the eastern limit of effective Egyptian and Roman control and western regions of the Persian Empire.

Modern era [link]

Wooden bridge carrying the Baghdad Railway over the Euphrates, ca. 1900–1910

After World War I, the borders in Southwest Asia were redrawn in the Treaty of Lausanne, when the Ottoman Empire was partitioned. Clause 109 of the treaty stipulated that the three riparian states of the Euphrates (at that time Turkey, France for its Syrian mandate and the United Kingdom for its mandate of Iraq) had to reach a mutual agreement on the use of its water and on the construction of any hydraulic installation.^[83] An agreement between Turkey and Iraq signed in 1946 required Turkey to report to Iraq on any hydraulic changes it made on the Tigris–Euphrates river system, and allowed Iraq to construct dams on Turkish territory to manage the flow of the Euphrates.^[84]

Turkey and Syria completed their first dams on the Euphrates – the Keban Dam and the Tabqa Dam, respectively – within one year of each other and filling of the reservoirs commenced in 1975. At the same time, the area was hit by severe drought and river flow toward Iraq was reduced from 15.3 cubic kilometres (3.7 cu mi) in 1973 to 9.4 cubic kilometres (2.3 cu mi) in 1975. This led to an international crisis during which Iraq threatened to bomb the Tabqa Dam. An agreement was eventually reached between Syria and Iraq after intervention by Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union.^[85]^[86] A similar crisis, although not escalating to the point of military threats, occurred in 1981 when the Keban Dam reservoir had to be refilled after it had been almost emptied to temporarily increase Turkey's hydroelectricity production.^[87] In 1984, Turkey unilaterally declared that it would ensure a flow of at least 500 cubic metres (18,000 cu ft) per second, or 16 cubic kilometres (3.8 cu mi) per year, into Syria, and in 1987 a bilateral treaty to that effect was signed between the two countries.^[88] Another bilateral agreement from 1989 between Syria and Iraq settles the amount of water flowing into Iraq at 60 percent of the amount that Syria receives from Turkey.^[84]^[86]^[89] In 2008, Turkey, Syria and Iraq instigated the Joint Trilateral Committee (JTC) on the management of the water in the Tigris–Euphrates basin and on 3 September 2009 a further agreement was signed to this effect.^[90]

Economy [link]

Throughout history, the Euphrates has been of vital importance to those living along its course. With the construction of large hydropower stations, irrigation schemes, and pipelines capable of transporting water over large distances, many more people now depend on the river for basic amenities such as electricity and drinking water than in the past. Syria’s Lake Assad is the most important source of drinking water for the city of Aleppo, 75 kilometres (47 mi) to the west of the river valley.^[91] The lake also supports a modest state-operated fishing industry.^[92] Through a newly restored power line, the Haditha Dam in Iraq provides electricity to Baghdad.^[93]

Notes [link]

^ ^a ^b Hartmann 2010
^ Negev & Gibson 2001, p. 169
^ Woods 2005
^ Michael Witzel, "Early Loan Words in Western Central Asia: Substrates, Migrations and Trade", Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World, ed. Victor H. Mair (Univ. of Hawaii, 2006), 5; [pdf] at [1]
^ Zarins 1997, p. 287
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Iraqi Ministries of Environment, Water Resources and Municipalities and Public Works 2006a, p. 71
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Daoudy 2005, p. 63
^ ^a ^b ^c Frenken 2009, p. 65
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Isaev & Mikhailova 2009, p. 384
^ Isaev & Mikhailova 2009, p. 388
^ Mutin 2003, p. 2
^ Bilen 1994, p. 100
^ Iraqi Ministries of Environment, Water Resources and Municipalities and Public Works 2006a, p. 91
^ Isaev & Mikhailova 2009, p. 385
^ Kolars 1994, p. 47
^ Isaev & Mikhailova 2009, p. 386
^ Iraqi Ministries of Environment, Water Resources and Municipalities and Public Works 2006a, p. 94
^ Hillel 1994, p. 95
^ Hole & Zaitchik 2007
^ Shahin 2007, p. 251
^ Partow 2001, p. 4
^ Frenken 2009, p. 63
^ Moore, Hillman & Legge 2000, pp. 52–58
^ Moore, Hillman & Legge 2000, pp. 63–65
^ Moore, Hillman & Legge 2000, pp. 69–71
^ Coad 1996
^ Gray 1864, pp. 81–82
^ Naval Intelligence Division 1944, pp. 203–205
^ Thomason 2001
^ Moore, Hillman & Legge 2000, pp. 85–91
^ Kliot 1994, p. 117
^ Iraqi Ministries of Environment, Water Resources and Municipalities and Public Works 2006b, pp. 20–21
^ Jamous 2009
^ Elhadj 2008
^ Mutin 2003, p. 4
^ Mutin 2003, p. 5
^ Kolars & Mitchell 1991, p. 17
^ Jongerden 2010, p. 138
^ Frenken 2009, p. 62
^ Isaev & Mikhailova 2009, pp. 383–384
^ Jongerden 2010, p. 139
^ Kolars 1994, p. 53
^ Daoudy 2005, p. 127
^ Hillel 1994, p. 100
^ Sahan et al. 2001, p. 10
^ Sahan et al. 2001, p. 11
^ Anonymous 2009, p. 11
^ McDowall 2004, p. 475
^ Hillel 1994, p. 107
^ Hillel 1994, p. 103
^ Frenken 2009, p. 212
^ Rahi & Halihan 2009
^ Jawad 2003
^ Muir 2009
^ McClellan 1997
^ Tanaka 2007
^ Steele 2005, pp. 52–53
^ Bounni 1979
^ del Olmo Lete & Montero Fenollós 1999
^ Abdul-Amir 1988
^ Garcia-Navarro 2009
^ Muhesen 2002, p. 102
^ Schmid et al. 1997
^ Sagona & Zimansky 2009, pp. 49–54
^ Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, p. 74
^ Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, p. 110
^ Helbaek 1972
^ Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, pp. 163–166
^ Oates 1960
^ Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, pp. 167–168
^ Ur, Karsgaard & Oates 2007
^ Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, p. 203
^ van de Mieroop 2007, pp. 38–39
^ Adams 1981
^ Hritz & Wilkinson 2006
^ Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, p. 233
^ van de Mieroop 2007, p. 63
^ van de Mieroop 2007, p. 111
^ van de Mieroop 2007, p. 132
^ van de Mieroop 2007, p. 241
^ van de Mieroop 2007, p. 270
^ van de Mieroop 2007, p. 287
^ Treaty of peace with Turkey signed at Lausanne, World War I Document Archive, http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Treaty_of_Lausanne, retrieved 19 December 2010
^ ^a ^b Geopolicity 2010, pp. 11–12
^ Shapland 1997, pp. 117–118
^ ^a ^b Kaya 1998
^ Kolars 1994, p. 49
^ Daoudy 2005, pp. 169–170
^ Daoudy 2005, pp. 172
^ Geopolicity 2010, p. 16
^ Shapland 1997, p. 110
^ Krouma 2006
^ O´Hara 2004, p. 3

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v t e Rivers of Turkey

Black Sea basin	Sakarya Bartın Kızılırmak Terme Yeşilırmak Yağlıdere Aksu Gelevara Kara Dere Çoruh

Marmara basin	Biga Susurluk (Simav)

Aegean basin	Meriç (Maritsa) Karamenderes Bakırçay Gediz Küçükmenderes Büyükmenderes

Mediterranean basin	Aksu Manavgat Köprüçay Göksu Limonlu Müftü (Efrenk) Berdan Seyhan Ceyhan Asi (Orontes)

Persian Gulf basin	Fırat (Euphrates) Dicle (Tigris) Hezil

Caspian basin	Aras Kura

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Reiner Knizia
Knizia at Essen 2008
Born	1957 (1957)
Nationality	German
Known for	Game designer

Reiner Knizia (German pronunciation: [ˈʁaɪnɐ ˈknɪtsiə]) is a prolific German-style board game designer. Born in Germany, he developed his first game at the age of eight. He has a PhD in mathematics, and has been a full-time game designer since 1997, when he quit his job from the board of a large international bank. Knizia has been living in England since 1993.

In addition to being quite prolific, with over 500 published games, he is highly acclaimed as a designer, having won the Deutscher Spiele Preis four times, a Spiel des Jahres (in addition to a Kinderspiel des Jahres and a special award) and numerous other national and international awards. At the Origins Game Fair in 2002 he was inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame. His games frequently make appearances on various "top games" lists: including the GAMES 100 list, the BoardGameGeek top 100, and the Internet Top 100 Games List. Several gaming conventions host "Kniziathons", which are tournaments dedicated to celebrating Knizia-designed games.^{[citation needed]}

Reiner Knizia started developing games for his play-by-mail game zine Postspillion, founded in 1985. The zine still exists and the game Bretton Woods (also a Reiner Knizia design), which was started in 1987, is still going.

According to Knizia, his best selling game is Lord of the Rings, published in 17 languages with over one million copies sold. However, it is anticipated that his hit game Ingenious, already published in over 20 languages, will soon take top spot.

Merging his talent with the already well-known franchise of Star Trek, Knizia designed a Star Trek-themed game for NECA/WizKids, based on the 2009 film that 'reset' the Star Trek universe. The game is set to be released sometime in 2011.^[1]

A number of Knizia designs have been redeveloped for the electronic gaming & console markets. Ingenious (aka Einfach Genial) and Keltis have both appeared in CD-ROM versions; Lost Cities was adapted for Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. An original game for the Nintendo DS, Dr. Reiner Knizia's Brainbenders was published in 2008; Keltis for the NDS followed in 2009. Knizia has also designed various game applications specifically for the iPhone, including Monumental, Roto and Robot Master.

1 Philosophy
2 Game characteristics
3 Games
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

Philosophy [link]

Reiner Knizia emphasises that he is a game designer, not a game publisher. "Designing games and publishing games are two very different disciplines. The designer creates the original game with its theme, its game system and its principal components, delivering a complete single prototype to the publisher. On the basis of this prototype, the publisher manages the production of the game, and promotes and markets it", explains Knizia. He continues "I concentrate on doing what I do best: designing games. This means that I can only be successful in cooperation with strong and competent publishers who do their job as professionally as I believe I do mine. I am always looking for new publishers all over the world, large or small, in the traditional games market as well as the electronic games market. I have lots of new and unpublished designs waiting for their opportunity to come to life."^[2]

Speaking about gameplay, Knizia has said that "When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning."

Game characteristics [link]

Knizia's games cover many board game genres. He has designed small two-player card games, children's games, simple games, sophisticated games, and even a live-action roleplaying game.

One element of modern game design that Reiner Knizia has pioneered is abstract theme. Older themed games like Monopoly have traditionally developed their themes by trying to model or emulate the environment or situation they are thematically tied to. So Monopoly has players buying and developing properties as a real developer might. Knizia's thematic game designs tend not to try to model a specific environment, but instead try to invoke the thought and decision-making processes that are key to the theme. For example, Knizia's game Medici has a fairly abstract game system of drawing and buying cards which does not try to model any particular environment, but in the game-world the players are always attempting to price risk, the key success factor in the investment banking business in which the Medicis made their fortune. This approach has allowed Knizia to develop games which are comparatively simple but require thoughtful game-play, while still retaining strongly thematic elements.

Using his understanding of principles in mathematics to full effect, pricing and evaluating risk are frequently recurring elements in Reiner Knizia games. Many of his most successful designs use auctions as a vehicle to price risk, as in Ra, Medici, and Modern Art.

Games [link]

References [link]

^ "Coming Soon - Star Trek Expeditions!". NECA/WizKids. http://wizkidsgames.com/startrek/star-trek-expeditions/. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
^ Statement from Knizia's official website

External links [link]

Knizia Games
Reiner Knizia video interview at Submarine Channel, 15 November 2011
Postspillion (German)
Reiner Knizia at BoardGameGeek (includes complete list of games)
Reiner Knizia at Math Genealogy Project
Reiner Knizia by the Numbers, interview with Reiner Knizia, 12 April 2006

Persondata
Name	Knizia, Reiner
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1957
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiner_Knizia

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.

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