Macedonian settlers in Apamea named it the Axius, after a Macedonian river god. The Arabic name () is derived from the ancient Axius. The word coincidentally means "insubordinate" in Arabic, which folk etymology ascribes to the fact that the river flows from the south to the north unlike the rest of the rivers in the region.

Course

thumb|left|385x385px|Map of the Orontes. White lines are country borders, river names are italic on a blue background, current cities or major towns on white backgrounds, other places of significance on orange backgrounds.

The Orontes rises in the springs near Labweh in Lebanon on the east side of the Beqaa Valley (in the Beqaa Governorate) between Mount Lebanon on the west and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains on the east, very near the source of the southward-flowing Litani, and runs north, falling through a gorge to leave the valley. Other major springs are Al Ghab, Al Rouj, and Al-Azraq.

thumb|220x220px|The Orontes flowing at the foot of the [[Syrian Coastal Mountain Range]]

thumb|220x220px|Orontes River in [[Hama, Syria]]

Leaving this gorge, it expands into the Lake of Homs (an artificial lake created by a Roman-era dam, also known as Qattinah lake) in the Homs Governorate of Syria and through the city of Homs (or Ḥimṣ). Next it flows through the Hama Governorate and its capital of Hamah (Hamaih-Epiphaneia), and the ancient site of Larissa (Shaizar). This is where the river enters the Ghab plain.

Further downstream, on the eastern edge of the Ghab, is located the ancient city of Apamea.

Lake Homs Dam was built by the Roman emperor Diocletian in 290 CE. In addition to Lake Homs, further Roman dams and dykes would be built along the Orontes river around Apamea, to better irrigate the Ghab plain. In 198 CE the province was split with the lower Orontes in the new province of Coele Syria and the upper Orontes from Emesa (modern day Homs) south in Syria Phoenice. Emesa was later raised to co-capital of the latter.

In 637 CE the Battle of the Iron Bridge near Antioch was fought between the forces of the Rashidun Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire near the Iron bridge and won by the former which shortly took control of the whole of the river valley.

For the Crusaders in the 12th century, the Orontes River became the permanent boundary between the Principality of Antioch and that of Aleppo.

A diversion dam in Lebanon was 60% complete when Israeli airstrikes damaged it during the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War.

The construction of a Syria–Turkey Friendship Dam was started in 2011 but postponed because of the Syrian Civil War. The war has also seen the siege of Homs from May 2011 until May 2014.

In summer 2025, the river basin faced crisis as rainfall dropped sharply and groundwater feeding the Orontes collapsed, the riverbed dried out in parts of northwestern Syria, thousands of fish died, and agricultural land was left fallow. In early 2026, the river continued to show extreme variability, as heavy winter rainfall caused water levels to rise sharply in parts of northwestern Syria, leading to flooding in areas such as Idlib countryside and Darkush, inundating homes and infrastructure and highlighting the growing instability of the river system after the preceding drought.

In art

The French writer Maurice Barrès purportedly transcribed in Un jardin sur l'Oronte (1922) a story that an Irish archaeologist had translated for him from a manuscript one evening in June 1914 at a café in Hama by the Orontes.

See also

  • Al-Mina – archaeological site at the mouth of the Orontes
  • Baalbek – a town and archaeological site just to the south of the source of the Orontes
  • Tell Tayinat and Tell Atchana – archaeological sites near each other in Hatay
  • Water resources management in Syria

Notes

References

  • Inventory of Shared Water Resources in Western Asia. Chapter 7 Orontes River Basin UN-ESCWA and BGR (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources). 2013
  • Pop-up map of the Orontes River available at:
  • Map of the Orontes River Basin: