Ceyhan River

The Ceyhan River (historically Pyramos or Pyramus (Greek: Πύραμος), Leucosyrus or Jihun) is a river in Anatolia in the south of Turkey.

Course of the river

The Ceyhan River (Pyramus) has its source (known as Söğütlü Dere) at a location called Pınarbaşı 3 km (1.9 mi) on the Nurhak Mountains of the Eastern Taurus Mountains range, southeast of the town of Elbistan in the Kahramanmaraş province of Turkey . According to classical references its source is at Cataonia near the town of Arabissus. Its main tributaries are called Harman, Göksun, Mağara Gözü, Fırnız, Tekir, Körsulu, Aksu (which joins Ceyhan at on the outskirts of Kahramanmaraş), Çakur, Susas, Çeperce. Its total length is 509 km or 316 miles.

In classical times for a time it passed under ground, but then came forward again as a navigable river, and forced its way through a glen of Mount Taurus, which in some parts was so narrow that Strabo claims a dog or hare could leap across it. Its course, which to this point had been south, then turned to the southwest, and reached the sea. The river was deep and rapid; its average breadth was 1 stadium.

Ceyhan

Ceyhan (pronounced [dʒeːˈhan]) is a city and a district in the Adana Province, in southern Turkey, 43 km (27 mi) east of Adana. With a population of 157 thousand, it is the largest district of the province, outside the city of Adana. Ceyhan is the transportation hub for Middle Eastern, Central Asian and Russian oil and natural gas. The city is situated on the Ceyhan River that flows through Çukurova plain. The Ceyhan River is dammed at Aslantas to provide flood control and irrigation for the lower river basin around Ceyhan.

Economy

Ceyhan's marine transport terminal is the Mediterranean terminus of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline (the "BTC") which brings crude oil from the landlocked Caspian Sea across Azerbaijan and Georgia, and entering Turkey in the northeast. The pipeline was completed in May 2005. The terminal contains seven storage tanks, a jetty capable of loading two tankers of up to 300,000 tonnes deadweight (DWT) simultaneously, metering facilities, a waste water treatment plant and vapor incineration ("burn-off") facilities.