List of cities and towns on the Euphrates River

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This article provides a detailed list of the cities and towns along the Euphrates River in order of country. Other landmarks along the way are provided for context. The river is approximately 2,781 kilometers (1,730 miles) long, For more information, see Euphrates River

1 Cities in Turkey
2 Cities in Syria
3 Cities in Iraq
- 3.1 Al Anbar Province
4 Sources

Location of Elazığ Province

The Euphrates is formed by the union of two branches, the Kara (the western Euphrates), which rises in the Armenian highlands of today's eastern Turkey north of Erzurum and the Murat (the eastern Euphrates). These rivers merge in the Elazığ Province of Turkey, where the river is dammed in several places such as the Keban Dam, the Karakaya Dam, Atatürk Dam, the Birecik Dam, and Karkamis Dam. Beneath the lakes of these dams are ancient towns like Samsat. Other towns like Elif, Hasanoğlu and Hisar in the Araban district of Gaziantep date back to Roman times. Halfeti, a district of Şanlıurfa, mentioned as “Halpa” in the Urartu inscriptions. [1]

The following is a partial list of other Turkish cities and towns that border the Euphrates.

Rumkale (Hromgla)
Arulis (Gümüşgün) was an important centre of the Kommagene kingdom
Zeugma known as “Seleukeia Euphrates” in the Hellenistic period
Birecik
Arsameia

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Map of Syria

The upper reaches of the Euphrates flow through steep canyons and gorges, southeast across Syria, and through Iraq. The Khabur and the Balikh River join the Euphrates in eastern Syria. Buhayrat al Asad is a large lake in Syria on the Euphrates River formed by the construction of the Tabaqah Dam in 1973. The sites of Tell Abu Hureyra and Mureybet ancient Mesoptamian cities of the Euphrates, are underneath this lake.

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Map of Iraq

Mosul ●

● Kirkuk

● Tikrit

● Samarra

Ramadi ●

● Baghdad

Fallujah ●

Karbala ●

● Kut

● Amarah

Najaf ●

● URUK

● LARSA

Nasiriyah ●

● UR

Basra ●

In Iraq, the Euphrates is known as Nahr al Furat and is only navigable by very shallow-draft boats, which can reach as far as the Iraqi city of Hit, located 1,930 kilometers (1,200 miles) upstream and which is only 53 meters (58 yards) above sea level. Above Hit, however, shoals and rapids make the river commercially unnavigable.

A 350 mile (565-km) canal links the Euphrates to the Tigris from Al-Yusufiyyah, 25 miles (40 km) south of Baghdad, to Al-Basrah.

North of Basra, in southern Iraq, the river merges with the Tigris to form the Arvand/Shatt al-Arab, this in turn empties into the Persian Gulf. The river used to divide into many channels at Basra, forming an extensive marshland, but the marshes were largely drained by the Saddam Hussein government in the 1990s as a means of driving out the rebellious Marsh Arabs. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the drainage policy has been reversed, but it remains to be seen whether the marshes will recover.