Büyük Menderes
| Büyük Menderes River (Büyük Menderes Irmağı) | |
| Maeander, Meander, Μαίανδρος | |
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| Country | Turkey |
|---|---|
| Tributaries | |
| - left | Çürüksu River, Akçay River, Çine River |
| Cities | Nazilli, Aydın, Söke |
| Source | |
| - location | Dinar, Afyonkarahisar Province |
| - elevation | 880 m (2,887 ft) |
| - coordinates | 38°04′15″N 30°10′37″E / 38.07083°N 30.17694°E |
| Mouth | Aegean Sea |
| - location | Aydin Province |
| - elevation | 0 m (0 ft) |
| - coordinates | 37°32′24″N 27°10′08″E / 37.54000°N 27.16889°ECoordinates: 37°32′24″N 27°10′08″E / 37.54000°N 27.16889°E |
| Length | 548 km (341 mi) |
| Basin | 25,000 km2 (9,653 sq mi) |
The Büyük Menderes River (historically the Maeander or Meander, from Ancient Greek: Μαίανδρος, Maíandros; Turkish: Büyük Menderes Irmağı), is a river in southwestern Turkey. It rises in west central Turkey near Dinar before flowing west through the Büyük Menderes graben until reaching the Aegean Sea in the proximity of the ancient Ionian city Miletus. The word "meander" is used to describe a winding pattern, after the river.
The river rises in a spring near Dinar and flows to Lake Işıklı. After passing the Adıgüzel Dam and the Cindere Dam, the river flows past Nazilli, Aydın and Söke before it drains into the Aegean Sea.
The Maeander was a celebrated river of Caria in Asia Minor. It appears earliest in the Catalog of Trojans of Homer's Iliad along with Miletus and Mycale.
The river has its sources not far from Celaenae in Phrygia (now Dinar), where it gushed forth in a park of Cyrus. According to some its sources were the same as those of the river Marsyas; but this is irreconcilable with Xenophon, according to whom the sources of the two rivers were only near each other, the Marsyas rising in a royal palace. Others state that the Maeander flowed out of a lake on Mount Aulocrene. William Martin Leake reconciles all these apparently different statements by the remark that both the Maeander and the Marsyas have their origin in the lake on Mount Aulocrene, above Celaenae, but that they issue at different parts of the mountain below the lake.
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Wikipedia