ARAS RIVER

Armenian Araks, Persian Rud-e Aras, Turkish Aras Nehri, Greek Araxes, river rising south of Erzurum in the Bingl Daglari (mountains) of Turkish Armenia; it flows eastward, forming for approximately 274 miles (441 km) the international boundary between Armenia on the north and Turkey and Iran on the south. Below Jolfa, a rail and road crossing in Iran, the stream emerges into a broad valley in which it crosses the Mugan Steppe. About 666 miles (1,072 km) long, it joins the Kura River in Azerbaijan 75 miles (121 km) from its mouth on the Caspian Sea. Since a flood in 1897 a separate distributary (canalized since 1909) of the Aras also empties into the Caspian. The swift-flowing unnavigable Aras accounts for most of the sediment composing the Kura-Aras delta. Principal tributaries of the Aras are the Razdan, draining Lake Sevan and the Qareh Su, flowing off the Kuhha-ye Sabalan in northeastern Iranian Azerbaijan. On an island in the river stood Artaxata, capital of Armenia from 180 BC to AD 50. Some have held that the Aras River valley was the legendary Garden of Eden.