Also: Brahmaputra river, Yarlung Tsangpo, Siang, Jamuna (Bangladesh)
Definition
A great trans-Himalayan river that rises near Lake Mansarovar in Tibet, flows east as the Yarlung Tsangpo, swings south around Namcha Barwa into Arunachal Pradesh as the Siang, crosses the Assam valley and joins the Ganga in Bangladesh.
The Brahmaputra is older than the highest Himalayan peaks it cuts through. Like the Indus and the Sutlej, it is an antecedent river: it was already flowing when the mountains began to rise, and it kept cutting down through the rising rock. That is why it can run for more than a thousand kilometres eastwards along the northern side of the Great Himalaya, in the trough between the Indian and Asian plates, before breaking south through one of the deepest gorges on Earth around the peak of Namcha Barwa.
In Tibet the river is the Yarlung Tsangpo, a relatively calm, high-altitude river that flows through a dry rain-shadow region. After the great bend it drops steeply into Arunachal Pradesh, where it is known as the Siang or Dihang. Near Sadiya it is joined by the Dibang and the Lohit, and from there it is called the Brahmaputra. In Assam it becomes a wide, braided river carrying a very heavy load of sediment, then turns south near Dhubri into Bangladesh. There it is called the Jamuna, meets the Padma (the Ganga), and finally drains into the Bay of Bengal through the Meghna.
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