The Yarmuk River (, ; Ancient Greek: Ἱερομύκης, ; [It is one of three main tributaries which enter the Jordan between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea; to the south there are the Zarqa River (Jabbok) and the Wadi Mujib (Arnon) rivers.] It runs in Jordan, Syria and Israel, and drains much of the Hauran plateau. Its main tributaries are the of Nahr al-Allan and Ruqqad from the north, Ehreir and Zeizun from the east. Although the Yarmuk is narrow and shallow throughout its course, at its mouth it is nearly as wide as the Jordan, measuring thirty feet in breadth and five in depth.
History
Yarmuk forms a
natural border between the plains to the north - Hauran,
Bashan and
Golan Heights - and the
Gilead mountains to the south. Thus it has often served as boundary line between political entities.
Neolithic
The Yarmukian is a Pottery Neolithic culture that inhabited parts of Israel and Jordan. Its
type site is at Sha'ar HaGolan, on the river mouth.
Bronze Age
Early Bronze Age I is represented in the Golan only in the area of the river.
[
]
Abila (Tel Abil) is attested in the 14th-century BC Amarna Letters. This is possibly the case also for Geshur, assumed to have lain north of the river.[Ma'oz, p. 420]
Iron Age
The Aramean kingdoms and the northern Kingdom of Israel, of the Hebrew Bible, might have set their boundary line along the Yarmouk occasionally. Under the and the province of Ashteroth Karnaim laid to the north, and that of Gal'azu (Gilead) to the south.
Hellenistic period
In Hellenistic times, the territory of Hippos was across from those of Gadara and Abila (Abel) on the south, while Dion sat on the eastern tributaries.
Roman period
When Pompey conquered the region in 64/63 BCE, he liberated the Hellenistic city of Gadara from Jewish Hasmonean rule (see also Decapolis). It seems that one way they celebrated the event was by damming the Yarmuk and organising a naumachia as part of games held in honour of Pompey, possibly at what is now Hammat Gader.
Byzantine period
The Battle of the Yarmuk, where Muslim forces defeated those of the Byzantine Empire and gained control of Syria, took place north of the river in CE 636.
1905–1948
A fork of the Hejaz Railway (connecting to the Jezreel Valley railway in Samakh) ran in the river valley from 1905 to 1946.[ Yarmuk River railway bridges, 1933 aerial photographs. Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East / National Archives, London.] It was deprecated after being bombed by the Jewish Haganah in the Night of the Bridges on 16 June 1946. The hydroplant of Naharayim, on the confluence with Jordan River, served Mandatory Palestine from 1932 to 1948.[ Hussein, Hussam, and Mattia Grandi. "Dynamic political contexts and power asymmetries: the cases of the Blue Nile and the Yarmouk Rivers." International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics (2017): 1-20.]
After 1948
Today, the lower part of the river, close to the Jordan Valley, forms part of the border between Israel and Jordan. Further upstream it forms part of the border between Syria and Jordan (a border largely inherited from the 1923 Franco-British Boundary Agreement). The area of Al-Hamma, or Hamat Gader in the valley is held by Israel but claimed by Syria.
The Al-Wehda Dam was constructed on the Jordan-Syria border in the 2000s. There are political agreements between Jordan and Syria (1953 and 1987) and between Jordan and Israel (1994), about the management and allocation of the shared waters of the Yarmouk.
On July 8 2025, Jordan and Syria signed an agreement to share water from the Yarmouk River after talks at the Al-Wehda Dam. The two countries signed a deal to monitor water use together and fix problems like illegal wells. Jordan plans to try cloud seeding to increase rainfall, and Syria offered to give Jordan extra water over the summer of 2025. Both sides called the talks positive and a step toward better regional cooperation.
External links
