Indus,Skardu, Pakistan.

Indus..., originally uploaded by M Atif Saeed.

The Indus River (Sanskrit: Sarasvati, Sindhu; Hindi: सिंधु नदी, Sindhu nadī; Avestan: Harauhuti; Urdu: دریائے سندھ, daryā-e sindh; Sindhi: سنڌو Sindhu; Punjabi: سندھ Sindh; Hindko: سندھ Sindh; Avestan: Hapta Hindu; Pashto: اباسين Abāsin "Water of Sindh"; Pashto: السند Al-Sind; Tibetan: སེང་གེ།་གཙང་པོ; Wylie: Sênggê Zangbo "Lion River"; Chinese: 森格藏布/狮泉河/印度河; pinyin: Sēngé Zàngbù/Shīquán Hé/Yìndù Hé; Greek: Ινδός Indós; Turki: Nilab) is a major river which flows through Pakistan.
Originating in the Tibetan plateau of western China in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region, the river runs a course through the Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and then enters Pakistan via the Northern Areas (Gilgit-Baltistan), flowing through the North in a southerly direction along the entire length of Pakistan, to merge into the Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi in Sindh. The total length of the river is 3,180 kilometers (1,976 miles) and it is Pakistan's longest river.
The river has a total drainage area exceeding 1,165,000 square kilometers (450,000 square miles). The river's estimated annual flow stands at around 207 cubic kilometers, making it the twenty-first largest river in the world in terms of annual flow. Beginning at the heights of the world with glaciers, the river feeds the ecosystem of temperate forests, plains and arid countryside. Together with the rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, Beas and two tributaries from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Afghanistan, the Indus forms the Sapta Sindhu (Seven Rivers) delta of Pakistan.
The Indus has formed a natural boundary between the Indian Subcontinent and its frontier with the Iranian Plateau, a region which includes Pakistan's Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iran. It has been crossed by the armies of Alexander the Great - His Macedonian forces retreated along the southern course of the river at the end of the Asian campaign after conquering what is now Pakistan and joining it to the Hellenic Empire. The Indus plains have also been under the domination of the Persian empire and the Kushan empire. The Muslim armies of Muhammad bin Qasim, Mahmud of Ghazni, Mohammed Ghori, Tamerlane and Babur also crossed the river to strike into the inner regions of Punjab and further south east.