The Indus is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia.
The 3,180 km (1,980 mi) river rises in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan regions of Kashmir, bends sharply to the left after the Nanga Parbat massif, and flows south-by-southwest through Pakistan, before it empties into the Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi.
The river has a total drainage area exceeding 1,165,000 km2 (450,000 sq mi). Its estimated annual flow is around 243 km3 (58 cu mi), making it one of the 50 largest rivers in the world in terms of average annual flow.
Its left-bank tributary in Ladakh is the Zanskar River, and its left-bank tributary in the plains is the Panjnad River which itself has five major tributaries, namely the Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers.
Its principal right-bank tributaries are the Shyok, Gilgit, Kabul, Kurram and Gomal rivers.
Beginning in a mountain spring and fed with glaciers and rivers in the Himalayan, Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, the river supports the ecosystems of temperate forests, plains and arid countryside.
The northern part of the Indus Valley, with its tributaries, forms the Punjab region of South Asia, while the lower course of the river ends in a large delta in the southern Sindh province of Pakistan.
The river has historically been important to many cultures of the region.
The 3rd millennium BC saw the rise of Indus Valley Civilisation, a major urban civilization of the Bronze Age.
During the 2nd millennium BC, the Punjab region was mentioned in the Rigveda hymns as Sapta Sindhu and in the Avesta religious texts as Saptha Hindu (both terms meaning seven rivers).
Early historical kingdoms that arose in the Indus Valley include Gandhāra, and the Ror dynasty of Sauvīra.
The Indus River came into the knowledge of the West early in the classical period, when King Darius of Persia sent his Greek subject Scylax of Caryanda to explore the river, c. 515 BC.
