The Tigris River flows through Baghdad and joins the Euphrates at Al-Qurnah in southern Iraq. Their meeting creates the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which then flows toward the Persian Gulf.
The Tigris rises in the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey and runs generally southeast through Turkey and Iraq. Baghdad was founded on the Tigris in 762 CE by the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur, and the river helped make the city a major center of administration, commerce, scholarship, and culture.
Together, the Tigris and Euphrates define much of the region historically called Mesopotamia, a name meaning “land between rivers.” Ancient societies in this region developed irrigation agriculture and some of the earliest cities and writing systems. The two rivers are separate for most of their courses, so identifying the Tigris matters when discussing Baghdad.