River
Great Zab
473 km from source to mouth · Iraq and Turkey.
Iraq and TurkeyFlows into Tigris3rd longest in Iraq
In numbers
Length
473km
Average flow
810m³/s
Basin
40,300km²
Drop
2,088m
from 2,273 m to 185 m
Countries
2
The journey
From source to mouth
473 km of river and 5 stops on the way: 4 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 2,273 m
- 122 kmHakkâri77,699 people
- 217 kmDêrelûk Devera Nihêliya44,448 people
- 229 kmShelādiz50,000 people
- 412 kmXebat148,047 people
- 432 kmKhazir Rivertributary
- 473 kmTigrisat 185 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Kurdistan (Iraq and Turkey)
At the mouth it carries 808 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 3.1 seconds. It drops from 2,273 m to 185 m, 4.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 40,300 km², about the size of CH. 2.0 million people live in it. Highest water: from February to March; lowest: from July to October. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- XebatLargest city on its banks · 148,047 people
- Erbil International Airport (EBL)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 25 km from the cityCar hire at MQM airport (Mardin)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From May to June and from September to OctoberThe best months to visit
Great Zab, month by month
Highest water: from February to March
Lowest water: from July to October. Best months to visit: from May to June and from September to October.
From about 12 m³/s in the lowest month to 630 m³/s in the highest. An estimate: the monthly flow is modelled from the lowest and highest months of WaterGAP (RiverATLAS, 1971–2000) and the rain and snow along the river (WorldClim). Dams change the real rhythm. The chip is the average air temperature; below it, the month's rain.
Plan the trip
Plan the trip: boat trips, a bed by the river, a car
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The basin
Great Zab: the basin in numbers
26,328 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 2.0millionpeople live in the basin
- 77/km²people per km²
- 1,403maverage altitude of the basin
- 671mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 12.9°Caverage air temperature
What covers the basin
- 1% Forest
- 21% Cropland
- 15% Pasture
- 4% Towns and cities
RiverATLAS (HydroATLAS v1.0, CC BY 4.0): land cover, people, protected areas, glaciers and dams over the whole basin upstream of the mouth.
Along the river
Great Zab: what you find on the way
- 5WaterfallsAva Ore Şelalesi, gali sherana and 3 more
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.1 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Great Zab in our other atlases
What our sister atlases know about the waterfalls on this river, the lakes it flows through, the beaches at its mouth, the mountains where it rises and the islands off its mouth.
14mountains at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (14)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Kūh-e Sarhaleh14 km away
- Kūh-e Qolleh Gūzīk13 km away
- Kūh-e Lāgh11 km away
- Kūh-e Shūr Bolāgh14 km away
- Dāgh Harāvol6.5 km away
- Sarıova Dağı8.6 km away
- Kara Hill7.0 km away
- Tavla Dağı14 km away
6 more on PeakyasOpen Peakyas ↗
From space
The source and the mouth, seen from orbit
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0. The glowing line is the river as drawn by RiverATLAS.
Photos
Great Zab in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
TigrisIraq1,850 km1,000 m³/sTributaries (1)
Also: Khazir River
In the same basin
IranNearby
Rivers nearby
Iraq456 km220 m³/s83 km awayKhaburTurkey194 km150 m³/s153 km awayKhabur River
Syria486 km70 m³/s281 km awayDiyala RiverIraq231 km130 m³/s326 km awayArpa River
Azerbaijan128 km21 m³/s411 km awayBalikh RiverSyria100 km15 m³/s384 km awayHrazdan River
Armenia141 km18 m³/s455 km awayAkhurian RiverTurkey186 km270 m³/s461 km awayWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q756018) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Course, profile, basin | RiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed along the river network from the point given by Wikidata |
| Flow | WaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate along the river | WorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Towns, bridges, dams | Wikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0 |
| Along the river | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Our other atlases | Peakyas — Wikidata · CC0; © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0; HydroLAKES · CC BY 4.0; NOAA OISST |
Every source and licence is on the data sources page.
The family
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