page_title: Karun
section_title: Course
hierarchical_section_title: Karun / Course
caption_attribution_description: English: Dammed portion of Karun River near Masjed Soleyman
context_page_description: The Kārūn is Iran's most effluent and only navigable river. It is 950 km long. It rises in the Zard Kuh mountains of the Bakhtiari district in the Zagros Range, receiving many tributaries, such as the Dez and the Kuhrang, before passing through the capital of the Khuzestan Province of Iran, the city of Ahvaz before emptying to its mouth into Arvand Rud.
  The Karun continues toward the Persian Gulf, forking into two primary branches on its delta - the Bahmanshir and the Haffar - that join the Arvand Rud, emptying into the Persian Gulf. The important Island of Abadan is located between these two branches of the Karun. The port city of Khorramshahr is divided from the Island of Abadan by the Haffar branch.
  Juris Zarins and other scholars have identified the Karun as one of the four rivers of Eden, the others being the Tigris, the Euphrates, and either the Wadi Al-Batin or the Karkheh.
context_section_description: It originates in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, on the slopes of 4,221 m (13,848 ft) Zard-Kuh. The river flows south and west through several prominent mountain ridges, and receives additional water from the Vanak on the south bank and the Bazoft on the north. These tributaries add to the catchment of the river above the Karun-4 Dam. 25 kilometres (16 mi) downstream, the Karun widens into the reservoir formed by the Karun-3 Dam.
  The Khersan flows into an arm of the reservoir from the southeast. The river passes through this reservoir and flows through a narrow canyon, now in a northwest direction, past Izeh, eventually winding into the Sussan Plain. The Karun then turns north into the reservoir of Shahid Abbaspour Dam (Karun-1), which floods the river's defile to the southwest. The Karun flows southwest into the impoundment of Masjed Soleyman Dam (Karun-2), then turns northwest. Finally, it leaves the foothills and flows south past Shushtar and its confluence with the Dez. It then bends southwest, bisecting the city of Ahvaz, and south through farmland to its mouth on the Arvand Roud at Khorramshahr, where its water, together with that of the Tigris and Euphrates, turns sharply southeast to flow to the Persian Gulf.
caption: Dammed portion near Masjed Soleyman
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