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Map showing the extent of Mesopotamia. The geography of Mesopotamia, encompassing its ethnology and history, centered on the two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates.While the southern is flat and marshy, the near approach of the two rivers to one another, at a spot where the undulating plateau of the north sinks suddenly into the Babylonian alluvium, tends to separate them still more ...
The Euphrates (/ juː ˈ f r eɪ t iː z / ⓘ yoo-FRAY-teez; see below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (lit. ' the land between the rivers ').
Mesopotamia [a] is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq. [1] [2] In the broader sense, the historical region of Mesopotamia also includes parts of present-day Iran, Turkey, Syria and Kuwait. [3] [4]
The Tigris–Euphrates Basin is shared between Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait. [6] [3] [4] [5] [7] Many tributaries of the Tigris river originate in Iran, and the Shatt al-Arab, formed by the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, makes up a portion of the Iran–Iraq border, with Kuwait's Bubiyan Island being part of its delta.
Today, however, Arvand Rud (Persian: اروندرود) refers to the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, known in Arabic as the Šaṭṭ al-ʿArab. In Kurdish languages, it is known as Ava Mezin, "the Great Water". [8] Mosul, Iraq Outside of Mosul, Iraq. The name of the Tigris in languages that have been important in the region:
The Aramaic name has been attested since the adoption of Old Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Neo Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BCE, [5] but the Greek name Mesopotamia was first coined in the 2nd century BCE by the historian Polybius during the Seleucid period [6] and introduced the misnomer that Beth Nahrain strictly referred to the "land between the rivers" rather than the "land of ...
It is known that at the time of Nabonidus the city had a Šangû-Upia (“High-Priest-of-Opis”). [ 22 ] In September 331 BC, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great (336–323 BC) defeated Darius III of Persia (336–330 BC) at the Battle of Gaugamela , and probably took possession of Opis about the same time as Babylon.
Mesopotamia was one of the earliest river valley civilizations: it started to form around 4000 BCE. The civilization was created after regular trading relationships started between multiple cities and states around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Mesopotamian cities became self-run civil governments.