Murat River

Murat River
Murat River
Physical characteristics
Source
• location	near Mount Ararat north of Lake Van
• elevation	2,720 m (8,920 ft)
Mouth
• location	Karasu near Keban, Elazığ Province
• elevation	820 m (2,690 ft)
Length	722 km (449 mi)
Basin features
River system	Euphrates

Source

Mouth

class=notpageimage|

Location of Murat River's source and mouth.

The Murat River (Template:Lang-tr), or Eastern Euphrates, is the major source of the Euphrates River and was called Arsanias (Template:Lang-hy) in antiquity. It originates near Mount Ararat north of Lake Van, in Eastern Turkey, and flows westward for 722 km (449 mi) through mountainous area. Before the construction of the Keban Dam, the Murat River joined the Karasu 10 km (6.2 mi) River north of the dam site and 13 km (8.1 mi) north of the town of Keban.

In Muş Province, the river is interrupted by the Alpaslan-1 Dam, which was completed in 2009. The Alpaslan-2 Dam is expected to be completed in 2016 and is located downstream of Alpaslan-1. The river merges into the reservoir of the Keban Dam, at one time Turkey's largest dam, which was completed in 1974 and provides electrical power.

In Bingöl and Elazığ provinces, Kalehan Energy has four dams planned for the river: from upstream to downstream, the Upper Kaleköy Dam, Lower Kaleköy Dam, Beyhan I Dam, and Beyhan II Dam. The Beyhan I is completed while the Upper Kaleköy is expected to be completed by 2017. They will have a combined installed capacity of 1,855 MW.

Name

The present name is usually connected with the Turkish Murat or its appellative murat "purpose, intention, desire". But this may be folk etymology, so Hrach Martirosyan tentatively proposes derivation from Old Armenian mōrat, murat “mud, marsh”.

The river was called Arșania in sources of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and Arsanias in Classical Greek and Roman times. Those forms may be derived from an Armenian original (Արածանի Aratsani), itself from an Indo-European root for 'white, bright'.