Kabul River
The Kabul River, anciently known as the Kubha and Cophen, is a river that emerges in the Sanglakh Range of the Hindu Kush mountains in the northeastern part of Maidan Wardak Province, Afghanistan. It is separated from the watershed of the Helmand River by the Unai Pass. The Kabul River empties into the Indus River near Attock, Pakistan. It is the main river in eastern Afghanistan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.
Course
The Kabul River, which measures long, rises in the Sanglākh Range at Sar Čašma, located at an elevation of 14,000 feet above sea level in the Kōh-e Bābā mountains northwest of Kabul. It passes through the cities of Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan. Its large drainage basin covers the eastern provinces of Nangarhār, Kunar, Laghmān, Lōgar, Kabul, Kāpisā, Parwān, Panjshēr, and Bāmyān before it flows into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan some north of the Durand Line border crossing at Torkham.In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the river passes through the cities of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Nowshera. The major tributaries of the Kabul River are the Logar, Panjshir, Alingar, Surkhab, Kunar, Bara, and Swat rivers.
File:Kabul River, Old Bridge, Bala Hissar in the Distance WDL11484.png|thumb|One of five bridges that crossed Kabul River during the Second Anglo-Afghan War era. Soldiers are pictured atop the bridge while people walk along the road in the distance and in the right foreground people sit or squat on the bridge while soldiers ride behind them. Bala Hissar is in the background just visible through the heat haze and trees. It was the locus of power in Kabul for many centuries and the site of fierce fighting during the war. It was partly destroyed between October and December 1879 when Sir Frederick Roberts occupied the city at the head of the Kabul Field Force
Hydrology
The Kabul River is little more than a trickle for most of the year, but swells in summer due to melting snows in the Hindu Kush Range. Its largest tributary is the Kunar River, which starts out as the Mastuj River, flowing from the Chiantar glacier in Brughil valley in Chitral, Pakistan and after flowing south into Afghanistan it is met by the Bashgal river flowing from Nurestan. The Kunar meets the Kabul near Jalalabad. In spite of the Kunar carrying more water than the Kabul, the river continues as the Kabul River after this confluence, mainly for the political and historical significance of the name.Dams
The Kabul River is impounded by several dams that were constructed in the 20th century. Three dams are located in the Kabul and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan, including the Surobi dam, a hydroelectric source for Kabul constructed 1957 with assistance by Germany, the Naghlu and the Darunta dams which were built by Soviet scientists in the 1960s. The Warsak Dam is also in the Valley of Peshawar in Pakistan, approximately 20 km northwest of the city of Peshawar.History
Expedition of Alexander the Great into Asia
In Arrian's The Campaigns of Alexander, the River Kabul is referred to as Κωφήν Kōphēn.Modern era
Since the 1990s, the river has experienced substantial droughts in summer. In approximately March 2019, ten of thousands of gallons of untreated sewage from the Makroyan Waste Water Treatment Plant has been dumped into the Kabul River each month, reportedly causing gastrointestinal issues among the 3,000 families that live along the river.Etymology
In Sanskrit and Avestan
The word Kubhā which is the ancient name of the river is both a Sanskrit and Avestan word. The word later changed to Kābul.Al-Biruni
, a Persian polymath, also called it "the River of Ghorwand".The Kabul River later gave its name to the region and to the settlement of Kabul.