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This article is about the river in Lebanon. For the river in South America see Litani River (South America).

The Litani River in red

The Litani River (Arabic: نهر الليطاني; transliterated: Nahr al-Līţānī; classical name: Leontes) is an important waterway in southern Lebanon. It rises west of Baalbek in the fertile Beqaa Valley valley and empties in the Mediterranean Sea north of Tyre, one of Lebanon’s largest cities. Exceeding 140 km, it is the longest river that originates and flows entirely within the borders of Lebanon. Most of its catchment area was under Israeli control during 1978 and from 1982 to 2000. It is a major water supply for Southern Lebanon.

The southern part of the Litani River, near the Israeli border.

After heading south parallel to the Syrian border, as the Litani nears northern Israel and the Golan Heights, the course of the river bends dramatically westward. Near this bend, the Litani comes within five km of the Hasbani River and four km from the Israeli border.

The portion of the river flowing west is called the Qasimiyeh. This river constitutes the geographic boundary between the Upper Galilee to its south and Mount Lebanon on its northern bank. The Qasmieh-Ras-el-Aïn region, irrigated from the river's lower reaches from main irrigation canals, to south and north, is one of the largest irrigated areas in the nation, consisting of 32.64 km², shared among 1257 irrigating farmers, who concentrate on citrus crops and bananas (Raad 2004). For the entire stretch of the Qasimiyeh as it flows into the Mediterranean Sea, the Litani River remains nearly parallel to (and about 18 miles north of) the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Qaraoun, an artificial lake of 11 square km, was created by the Litani River Dam, 60 meters high and 1,350 meters in length, which was completed in 1959. A spillway of 6503 meters carries the water to the underground station where transformers produce a maximum of 185 megawatts of electricity, the largest hydroelectric project in Lebanon. The dam was intended eventually to provide irrigation for 310 km² of farmland in South Lebanon and 80 km² in the Beqaa Valley. The office is at the southern (dam) end of the lake on the left side. The lakeside has a hotel and a number of restaurants specializing in fresh trout.

The Litani River Authority (LRA) was formed in 1954 to facilitate the integrated development of the Litani River Basin. Shortly after its formation, the LRA engaged in a massive hydroelectric development project that tapped the 850 meter head potential between Lake Qaraoun and the Mediterranean. This development has brought about major hydrological changes to the Litani River Basin, where the flows from its upper reaches above Lake Qaraoun, referred to as the Upper Litani Basin (ULB), are diverted through a system of tunnels, ponds and plants, to meet the Mediterranean several kilometers north of its original natural tailwater. These changes have resulted in the effective hydrological separation between the ULB and the Litani lower reaches.The advent of a protracted civil strife in the 1970s followed by a prolonged occupation in the 1980s that lasted into the 1990s, have plunged the country into disarray, freezing development and investment in infrastructure. The subsequent return to normal conditions has encouraged the LRA to initiate several major water diversion projects from the ULB worth hundreds of millions of US dollars.

The famous nonsense poem, "A Classic Ode" by Charles Battell Loomis, is (theoretically) about the Litani.

• Bregman, Ahron (2002). Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28716-2
• Raad, Daoud, 2004. "Localized irrigation in Qasmieh-Ras-el-Aïn: a technique to be encouraged" pdf file
• Amery, H. A. 1993. "The Litani River of Lebanon", Geographical Review 83(3) pp229-237.
• Where the western Litani empties into the Mediterranean, on Wikimapia
• Old Feud Over Lebanese River Takes New Turn
• Assaf, Hamed and Saadeh, Mark. "Development of an Integrated Decision Support System for Water Quality Control in the Upper Litani Basin, Lebanon", Proceedings of the iEMSs Third Biennial Meeting, "Summit on Environmental Modelling and Software". International Environmental Modelling and Software Society, Burlington, USA, July 2006.

• Operation Litani