The Jhelum River is the largest and most western of the five rivers of the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is a tributary of the Indus River. It was called the Hydaspes by the ancient Greeks and passes through Jhelum_City. Alexander the Great crossed the Jhelum in 326 BC to defeat Porus at the Battle of the Hydaspes.

Course

The river rises from northeastern Jammu and Kashmir and is fed by glaciers, and then passes through the Srinagar district. The Neelum River , the largest tributary of the Jhelum, joins it near Muzaffarbad , as does the next largest, the Kunhar River of the Kaghan Valley. It is joined by the Poonch river, and flows into the Mangla dam reservoir in the district of Mirpur. It enters the Punjab in the Jhelum District. From there, it flows through the plains of the Punjab, forming the boundary between the Chaj and Sindh Sagar Doabs. It ends in a confluence with the Chenab at Trimmu .

Dams and Barrages

• Mangla, completed in 1967, is one of the largest earthfill dams in the world, with a storage capacity of 5.9 million acre-feet (7.3 km³)
• Rasul Barrage, constructed in 1967, has a maximum flow of 850,000 ft³/s (24,000 m³/s).

• Trimmu Barrage, constructed in 1939 at the confluence with the Chenab, has maximum discharge capacity of 645,000 ft³/s (18,000 m³/s).

Canals

• Upper Jhelum Canal. Runs from Mangla to the Chenab.
• Rasul-Qadirabad (RQ) Link Canal. Runs from the Rasul barrage to the Chenab.
• Chashma-Jhelum (CJ) Link Canal. Runs from Chashma barrage to the Jhelum River downstream of Rasul barrage.

External links

• (Livius Picture Archive)