Karun River
— — Iran's only river you can sail.
Not only on a wall.
“Iran's longest river and its only navigable one. The Karun rises in the Zard Kuh massif of the central Zagros, drops through gorges past the Karun-3 and Karun-4 dams, and crosses the Khuzestan plain before meeting the Arvand Rud at the Persian Gulf. Ahvaz sits on its banks. The bridges of Ahvaz light up after dark in green and amber.
Karun River, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Karun is the longest river in Iran at roughly 950 kilometres and is the country's only river that has historically carried commercial shipping. It rises in the Zard Kuh massif of the central Zagros Mountains in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, flows south and west across Khuzestan, passes through the city of Ahvaz, and joins the Arvand Rud (Shatt al-Arab) near Khorramshahr before reaching the Persian Gulf. The river drains a basin of about 65,000 square kilometres.
Snowmelt from the high Zagros feeds the Karun through spring and early summer, and the river runs lowest in late autumn. Four major dams sit along its course: Karun-1, Karun-3, Karun-4, and Gotvand, built between 1976 and 2011 for hydropower and irrigation across Khuzestan's sugarcane and date plantations. Gotvand became contested because of salt domes in its reservoir, which raised the river's salinity downstream. The Karun's lower reach near Khorramshahr was the only Iranian stretch open to seagoing vessels under the Treaty of Erzurum.
The river's character changes with the season. Spring carries the snowmelt and the high water, the bridges in Ahvaz swell up to their middle arches, and pleasure boats run the city stretch in the evenings. Summer is hot and dry across Khuzestan, often above 45 degrees Celsius in Ahvaz, and the Karun is the city's only relief. Autumn settles the flow. Winter is mild on the plain and snow-cold at the Bakhtiari headwaters, where the Bakhtiari nomads make their old migration along the river's source valleys.