Course
The Orontes rises in the great springs of Labweh on the east side of the Beqaa Valley, very near the fountains of the southward-flowing Litani, and it runs due north, parallel with the coast, falling 2000 feet (600 m) through a rocky gorge. Leaving this it expands into the Lake of Homs, having been dammed back in antiquity. The valley now widens out into the rich district of Hamah (Hamaih-Epiphaneia), below which lie the broad meadow-lands of Amykes, containing the sites of ancient Apamea and Larissa. This central Orontes valley ends at the rocky barrier of Jisr al-Hadid, where the river is diverted to the west, and the plain of Antioch opens.
Two large tributaries from the north, the Afrin and Karasu, here reach it through the former Lake of Antioch, which is now drained through an artificial channel (Nahr al-Kowsit). Passing north of the modern Antakya (ancient Antioch) the Orontes plunges southwest into a gorge (compared by the ancients to Tempe), and falls 150 feet (50 m) in 10 miles (16 km) to the sea just south of the little port of Samandağı (former Suedia, in antiquity Seleucia Pieria), after a total course of 150 miles (240 km).
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