Kárún River (Persian Kúrán; the Urai of Daniel, viii. 2), the sole navigable river of Persia. Rising in the Zardah Koh Mountains, near Ispahan, it flows west through gorges of the Bakhtiári Range to Shuster, the capital of the province of Árábistán, where it becomes navigable. At Ahwáz a reach of rapids and broken water bars the course of vessels to the Lower Kárún, and a canal from Ahwáz to a point about mile down stream will have to be cut before through navigation is possible. A tramway was in 1890 in course of construction for the conveyance of passengers and merchandise from the limit of navigable water to Ahwáz. Below Ahwáz the river varies in breadth from 300 to 500 yards, and flows for 117 miles without an obstacle through a country naturally rich and fertile, but now entirely uncultivated. Mohammedah lies at the junction of the Kárún with the waters of the Enphrates and Tigris (Shat-el-Arab). As long ago as 1842 Lieutenant Selby ascended the Kárún as far as Shuster, and made a report urging the importance of this waterway to English commerce. But it was not till October 1888 that, through the instrumentality of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, then British minister at Teheran, the navigation was thrown open by royal proclamation not to England only but to the commerce of the world. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this new trade route to Persia, to British India, or to England.
See W. F. Ainsworth, The River Kárún (1890); Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc., vol. ix. p. 26, vol. xiv. p. 219, and new series, vol. v. p. 120; and the Times of 4th February 1890.