Orontes River

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Greek: Ὀρόντης, Arabic: العاصي‎‎: ‘Āṣī, Turkish: Asi
Noria in Hama 01.jpg
Orontes River in Hama, Syria
Countries Lebanon, Syria, Turkey
Cities Homs, Hama, Jisr al-Shughur, Antakya
Source Labweh
 - location Beqaa Valley, Lebanon
 - elevation 910 m (2,986 ft)
Mouth Samandağ
 - location Hatay Province, Turkey
Length 571 km (355 mi)
Basin 23,000 km2 (8,880 sq mi)

The Orontes (/əˈrɒntiz/; Ὀρόντης) or Asi (Arabic: العاصي‎‎, ‘Āṣī; Turkish: Asi) is a northward flowing river starting in Lebanon and flowing through Syria and Turkey before entering the Mediterranean Sea.[1]

It was anciently the chief river of the Levant. The modern name ‘Āṣī is derived from the ancient Axius. The word coincidentally means "rebel" in Arabic, which folk etymology ascribes to the fact that the river flows from the south to the north unlike the rest of the rivers in the region.[2]


For the Assyrians, the river was named Arantu in the 9th century BC while the Egyptians named it Araunti; the etymology of the name is unknown.[3] The Arantu became "Orontes" in Greek but the Macedonian settlers in Apamea named it the Axius; the Arabic name "Asi" was derived from the "Axius" rather than the older name.[4]

Strabo tells a story about the river; its original name was Typhon then became the Orontes when a man named Orontes built a bridge on it.[3] According to Strabo, Zeus forced the dragon Typhon out the sky by hitting him with a thunderbolt and the fall of the monster created the river bed of the Orontes.[5] The story of Strabo is apparently of Phoenician or Egyptian origin instead of Greek.[6]


Orontes River in Hama, Syria, 1914

The Orontes rises in the springs near Labweh in Lebanon on the east side of the Beqaa Valley (in the Beqaa Governorate), very near the source of the southward-flowing Litani, and runs north, parallel with the coast, falling 600 metres (2,000 ft) through a gorge.[1] Leaving this it expands into the Lake of Homs in Syria also known as Qattinah lake formed by a Roman-era dam and through the city of Homs (or Ḥimṣ). Below is the district of Hamah (Hamaih-Epiphaneia) and the meadows of Amykes, containing the sites of ancient Apamea and Larissa.[1] To the west is the Coastal Mountain Range. This central section ends at the rocky barrier of Jisr al-Hadid, where the river turns west into the plain of Antioch in Turkey.[1]

Two large tributaries from the north, the southward flowing Afrin on the west and Karasu on the east join it through the former Lake of Antioch, which is now drained through an artificial channel (Nahr al-Kowsit). Passing north of the modern Antakya (ancient Antioch) the Orontes plunges southwest into a gorge (compared by the ancients to Tempe), and falls 50 metres (160 ft) in 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) to the sea just south of the little port of Samandağı (former Suedia, in antiquity Seleucia Pieria), after a total course of 450 kilometres (280 mi).[1]






See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b c d e f "Asi-Orontes Basin". Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Names. 2009. Retrieved 15 February 2015. 
  5. ^ Jørgen Christensen-Ernst. Antioch on the Orontes: A History and a Guide. p. 153. 
  6. ^ Glanville Downey. History of Antioch. p. 53. 
