- Tigris
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For other uses, see Tigris (disambiguation).
Tigris River 
About 100 km from its source, the Tigris enables rich agriculture outside Diyarbakır, Turkey.Countries Turkey, Syria, Iraq Basin area Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran Tributaries - left Batman, Khabur, Greater Zab, Lesser Zab, 'Adhaim, Diyala, Cizre - right Wadi Tharthar Cities Diyarbakır, Mosul, Baghdad Source Lake Hazar - elevation 1,150 m (3,773 ft) - coordinates 38°29′0″N 39°25′0″E / 38.483333°N 39.416667°E Mouth Shatt al-Arab - location Al-Qurnah, Basra Governorate, Iraq Length 1,850 km (1,150 mi) Basin 375,000 km2 (144,788 sq mi) Discharge for Baghdad - average 1,014 m3/s (35,809 cu ft/s) - max 2,779 m3/s (98,139 cu ft/s) - min 337 m3/s (11,901 cu ft/s) [1][2] The Tigris River (English pronunciation: /ˈtaɪɡrɪs/) 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.
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Geography
The Tigris is about 1,850 km long, rising in the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey about 25 km southeast of the city of Elazig and circa 30 km from the headwaters of the Euphrates River. The river then flows for 400 km through Turkish territory, before becoming the border between Syria and Iraq. 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.[1]
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.[3]
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. Saddam Hussein's hometown, Tikrit, is also located on the river and derives its name from it.
The Tigris has long been an important transport route in a largely desert country. It can go as far as Baghdad by shallow-draft vessels, but rafts are needed for transport upstream to Mosul.
General Francis Rawdon Chesney hauled two steamers overland through Syria in 1836, to explore the possibility of an overland and river route to India. One steamer, the Tigris, was wrecked in a storm which sank and killed twenty adventurers. Chesney proved the river navigable to powered craft. The river was prone to flooding, drying, and silting.
Later, the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company was established in 1861 by the Lynch Brothers trading company. They had 2 steamers in service. By 1908 ten steamers were on the river. Tourists boarded steam yachts to venture inland as this was the first age of Archaelological Tourism and the sites of Ur and Ctesiphon became popular to European travellers.
In the First World War during the British conquest of Ottoman Mesopotamia, Indian and Thames River paddlers were used to supply General Townsend's Army. See Siege of Kut, and the Fall of Baghdad (1917).[4] The Tigris Flotilla included vessels Clio, Espiegle, Lawrence, Odin, armed tug Comet, armed launches Lewis Pelly, Miner, Shaitan, Sumana, and stern wheelers Muzaffari/Mozaffir. These were joined by Royal Navy Fly-class Butterfly, Cranefly, Dragonfly, Mayfly, Sawfly, Snakefly and Mantis, Moth, and Tarantula.
After the war river trade declined in importance during the 20th century as the Basra-Baghdad-Mosul railway, an unfinished portion of the Baghdad Railway was completed and roads took over much of the freight traffic.
Etymology
The original Sumerian name was Idigna or Idigina, probably from *id (i)gina "running water",[5] which can be interpreted as "the swift river", contrasted to its neighbor, the Euphrates, whose leisurely pace caused it to deposit more silt and build up a higher bed than the Tigris. This form was borrowed and gave rise to Akkadian Idiqlat. From Old Persian Tigrā, the word was adopted into Greek as Tigris ("Τίγρις" which is also Greek for "tiger").
Pahlavi tigr means "arrow", in the same family as Old Persian tigra- "pointed" (compare tigra-xauda), Modern Persian têz, tiz "sharp". However, it does not appear that this was the original name of the river, but that it (like the Semitic forms of the name) was coined as an imitation of the indigenous Sumerian name. This is similar to the Persian name of the Euphrates, Ufratu, after the Akkadian name Purattu.
Another name for the Tigris, used from the time of the Persian Empire, is Arvand Rud, literally Arvand River. Today the name Arvand Rud is the Persian name for the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers which in Arabic is called Shatt al-Arab.
The name of the Tigris in languages that have been important to the region:
