document_title: Timur

question_text: who was the sultan when timur invaded on delhi

question_tokens: who was the sultan when timur invaded on delhi

text: Timur

text: Ancestry

text:
Through his father, Timur claimed to be a descendant of Tumanay Khan, a male-line ancestor he shared in common with Genghis Khan.[17] Tuminai's great-great grandson Karachar Noyan (1165–1242/54) was a minister for the Emperor and was eventually transferred to assist his second son Chagatai in the governorship of Transoxiana.[18][19]
Though there are not many mentions of Karachar in 13th and 14th century records, later Timurid sources greatly emphasised his role in the early history of the Mongol Empire.[20] These histories also state that Genghis Khan later "established the bond of fatherhood and sonship" by marrying Chagatai's daughter to Karachar.[21] Through his descent from this marriage, Timur claimed kinship with the Chagatai Khans.

text: The origins of Timur's mother, Tekina Khatun are less clear. The Zafarnama merely states her name without giving any information regarding her background. Writing in 1403 Jean, Archbishop of Sultaniyya claimed that she was of lowly origins.[22] The Mu'izz al-Ansab, written decades later say that she was related to the Yasa'uri tribe, whose lands bordered that of the Barlas.[23] Ibn Khaldun recounted that Timur himself described to him his mother's descent from the legendary Persian hero Manuchehr.[24] Ibn Arabshah suggested that she was a descendant of Genghis Khan.[25] The 18th century Books of Timur identify her as the daughter of 'Sadr al-Sharia', believed to be referring to the Hanafi scholar Ubayd Allah al-Mahbubi of Bukhara.[26]

text: Early life

text: Timur was born in Transoxiana near the city of Kesh (modern Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan) some 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of Samarkand, part of what was then the Chagatai Khanate.[27] His father, Taraghai, was a minor noble of the Barlas,[27] a Mongolian tribe[28][29] that had been turkified in many aspects.[30][31][32] Historian Beatrice Forbes Manz believes that Timur may have later understated the social position of his father so as to make his own successes appear more remarkable. She states that though he is not believed to be especially powerful, Taraghai was reasonalbly wealthy and influential.[33] This is shown by Timur returning to his birthplace following the death of Taraghai in 1360, suggesting concern over his estate.[34] He is described by Arabshah as a magnate in the court of Amir Husayn Qara'unas.[25] In addition to this the father of the great Amir Hamid Kereyid of Moghulistan is stated as a friend of Taraghai's.[35]

text: According to Gérard Chaliand, Timur was a Muslim,[36] and he saw himself as Genghis Khan's heir.[36] Though not a Borjigid or a descendent of Genghis Khan,[37] he clearly sought to invoke the legacy of Genghis Khan's conquests during his lifetime.[38]

text: His name Temur means "Iron" in the Chaghatay language, Timur's mother-tongue (cf. Uzbek Temir, Turkish Demir).

text: Later Timurid dynastic histories claim that he was born on 8 April 1336, but most sources from his lifetime give ages that are consistent with a birthdate in the late 1320s. Historian Beatrice Forbes Manz suspects the 1336 date was designed to tie Timur to the legacy of Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan, the last ruler of the Ilkhanate descended from Hulagu Khan, who died in that year.[39]

text: At the age of eight or nine, Timur and his mother and brothers were carried as prisoners to Samarkand by an invading Mongol army. In his childhood, Timur and a small band of followers raided travelers for goods, especially animals such as sheep, horses, and cattle.[39]:116 Around 1363, it is believed that Timur tried to steal a sheep from a shepherd but was shot by two arrows, one in his right leg and another in his right hand, where he lost two fingers. Both injuries crippled him for life. Some believe that Timur suffered his crippling injuries while serving as a mercenary to the khan of Sistan in Khorasan in what is today the Dashti Margo in southwest Afghanistan. Timur's injuries have given him the names of Timur the Lame and Tamerlane by Europeans.[11]:31

text: Timur was a Muslim, possibly belonging to the Naqshbandi school of Sufism, which was influential in Transoxiana.[40] However, his chief official religious counsellor and adviser was the Hanafi scholar 'Abdu 'l-Jabbar Khwarazmi. In Tirmidh, he had come under the influence of his spiritual mentor Sayyid Baraka, a leader from Balkh who is buried alongside Timur in Gur-e-Amir.[41][42][43] Timur was known to hold Ali and the Ahl al-Bayt in high regard and has been noted by various scholars for his "pro-Alid" stance. Despite this, Timur was noted for attacking the Shia with Sunni apologism, while at other times he attacked Sunnis on religious ground as well.[44] In contrast, Timur held the Seljuk Sultan Ahmad Sanjar in high regard for attacking the Ismailis at Alamut, while Timur's own attack on Ismailis at Anjudan was equally brutal.[44]

text: Personality

text: Timur is regarded as a military genius and as a brilliant tactician with an uncanny ability to work within a highly fluid political structure to win and maintain a loyal following of nomads during his rule in Central Asia. He was also considered extraordinarily intelligent – not only intuitively but also intellectually.[9]:16 In Samarkand and his many travels, Timur, under the guidance of distinguished scholars, was able to learn the Persian, Mongolian, and Turkish languages[11]:9 (according to Ahmad ibn Arabshah, Timur could not speak Arabic).[45] More importantly, Timur was characterized as an opportunist. Taking advantage of his Turco-Mongolian heritage, Timur frequently used either the Islamic religion or the law and traditions of the Mongol Empire to achieve his military goals or domestic political aims.[11] Timur was a learned king, and enjoyed the company of scholars; he was tolerant and generous to them. He was a contemporary of the Persian poet Hafez, and a story of their meeting explains that Timur summoned Hafiz, who had written a ghazal with the following verse:

text:
For the black mole on thy cheek
I would give the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara.

text: Timur upbraided him for this verse and said, "By the blows of my well tempered sword I have conquered the greater part of the world to enlarge Samarkand and Bukhara, my capitals and residences; and you, pitiful creature, would exchange these two cities for a mole." Hafez, undaunted, replied, "It is by similar generosity that I have been reduced, as you see, to my present state of poverty." It is reported that the King was pleased by the witty answer and the poet departed with magnificent gifts.[46][47]

text: Timur used Persian expressions in his conversations often, and his motto was the Persian phrase rāstī rustī (راستی رستی, meaning "truth is safety" or "veritas salus").[45]

text: Military leader

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text: About 1360, Timur gained prominence as a military leader whose troops were mostly Turkic tribesmen of the region.[36] He took part in campaigns in Transoxiana with the Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Allying himself both in cause and by family connection with Qazaghan, the dethroner and destroyer of Volga Bulgaria, he invaded Khorasan[48] at the head of a thousand horsemen. This was the second military expedition that he led, and its success led to further operations, among them the subjugation of Khwarezm and Urgench.

text: Following Qazaghan's murder, disputes arose among the many claimants to sovereign power. Tughlugh Timur of Kashgar, the Khan of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, another descendant of Genghis Khan, invaded, interrupting this infighting. Timur was sent to negotiate with the invader but joined with him instead and was rewarded with Transoxania. At about this time, his father died and Timur also became chief of the Berlas. Tughlugh then attempted to set his son Ilyas Khoja over Transoxania, but Timur repelled this invasion with a smaller force.[48]

text: Rise to power

text: It was in this period that Timur reduced the Chagatai khans to the position of figureheads while he ruled in their name. Also during this period, Timur and his brother-in-law Amir Husayn, who were at first fellow fugitives and wanderers in joint adventures, became rivals and antagonists. The relationship between them began to become strained after Husayn abandoned efforts to carry out Timur's orders to finish off Ilya Khoja (former governor of Mawarannah) close to Tishnet.[11]:40

text: Timur began to gain a following of people in Balkh, consisting of merchants, fellow tribesmen, Muslim clergy, aristocracy and agricultural workers, because of his kindness in sharing his belongings with them. This contrasted Timur's behavior with that of Husayn, who alienated these people, took many possessions from them via his heavy tax laws and selfishly spent the tax money building elaborate structures.[11]:41–2 Around 1370, Husayn surrendered to Timur and was later assassinated, which allowed Timur to be formally proclaimed sovereign at Balkh. He married Husayn's wife Saray Mulk Khanum, a descendant of Genghis Khan, allowing him to become imperial ruler of the Chaghatay tribe.[11]

text: One day Aksak Temür spoke thusly:

text: "Khan Züdei (in China) rules over the city. We now number fifty to sixty men, so let us elect a leader." So they drove a stake into the ground and said: "We shall run thither and he among us who is the first to reach the stake, may he become our leader". So they ran and Aksak Timur, as he was lame, lagged behind, but before the others reached the stake he threw his cap onto it. Those who arrived first said: "We are the leaders." ["But,"] Aksak Timur said: "My head came in first, I am the leader." Meanwhile, an old man arrived and said: "The leadership should belong to Aksak Timur; your feet have arrived but, before then, his head reached the goal." So they made Aksak Timur their prince.[49][50]

text: Legitimization of Timur's rule

text: Timur's Turco-Mongolian heritage provided opportunities and challenges as he sought to rule the Mongol Empire and the Muslim world. According to the Mongol traditions, Timur could not claim the title of khan or rule the Mongol Empire because he was not a descendant of Genghis Khan. Therefore, Timur set up a puppet Chaghatay Khan, Suyurghatmish, as the nominal ruler of Balkh as he pretended to act as a "protector of the member of a Chinggisid line, that of Genghis Khan's eldest son, Jochi".[51]

text: As a result, Timur never used the title of khan because the name khan could only be used by those who come from the same lineage as Genghis Khan himself. Timur instead used the title of amir meaning general, and acting in the name of the Chagatai ruler of Transoxania.[39]:106

text: To reinforce his position in the Mongol Empire, Timur managed to acquire the royal title of son-in-law when he married a princess of Chinggisid descent.[9]:14

text: Likewise, Timur could not claim the supreme title of the Islamic world, caliph, because the "office was limited to the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad". Therefore, Timur reacted to the challenge by creating a myth and image of himself as a "supernatural personal power" ordained by God.[51] Since Timur had a successful career as a conqueror, it was easy to justify his rule as ordained and favored by God since no ordinary man could be a possessor of such good fortune that resistance would be seen as opposing the will of God. Moreover, the Islamic notion that military and political success was the result of Allah's favor had long been successfully exploited by earlier rulers. Therefore, Timur's assertions would not have seemed unbelievable to fellow Islamic people.

text: Period of expansion

text: Timur spent the next 35 years in various wars and expeditions. He not only consolidated his rule at home by the subjugation of his foes, but sought extension of territory by encroachments upon the lands of foreign potentates. His conquests to the west and northwest led him to the lands near the Caspian Sea and to the banks of the Ural and the Volga. Conquests in the south and south-West encompassed almost every province in Persia, including Baghdad, Karbala and Northern Iraq.

text: One of the most formidable of Timur's opponents was another Mongol ruler, a descendant of Genghis Khan named Tokhtamysh. After having been a refugee in Timur's court, Tokhtamysh became ruler both of the eastern Kipchak and the Golden Horde. After his accession, he quarreled with Timur over the possession of Khwarizm and Azerbaijan. However, Timur still supported him against the Russians and in 1382 Tokhtamysh invaded the Muscovite dominion and burned Moscow.[52]

text: In 1395, Tamerlane reached the frontier of Principality of Ryazan, took Elets and advancing towards Moscow came near the banks of the Don River. Great Prince Vasily I of Moscow went with an army to Kolomna and halted at the banks of the Oka River. The clergy brought the famed Theotokos of Vladimir icon from Vladimir to Moscow. Along the way people prayed kneeling: “O Mother of God, save the land of Russia!” Suddenly, Tamerlane's armies retreated. In memory of this miraculous deliverance of the Russian land from Tamerlane on August 26, the all-Russian celebration in honor of the Meeting of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God was established.[53]

text: Conquest of Persia

text: After the death of Abu Sa'id, ruler of the Ilkhanate, in 1335, there was a power vacuum in Persia. In the end, Persia was split amongst the Muzaffarids, Kartids, Eretnids, Chobanids, Injuids, Jalayirids, and Sarbadars. In 1383, Timur started his lengthy military conquest of Persia, though he already ruled over much of Persian Khorasan by 1381, after Khwaja Mas'ud, of the Sarbadar dynasty surrendered. Timur began his Persian campaign with Herat, capital of the Kartid dynasty. When Herat did not surrender he reduced the city to rubble and massacred most of its citizens; it remained in ruins until Shahrukh Mirza ordered its reconstruction.[54] Timur then sent a General to capture rebellious Kandahar. With the capture of Herat the Kartid kingdom surrendered and became vassals of Timur; it would later be annexed outright less than a decade later in 1389 by Timur's son Miran Shah.

text: Timur then headed west to capture the Zagros Mountains, passing through Mazandaran. During his travel through the north of Persia, he captured the then town of Tehran, which surrendered and was thus treated mercifully. He laid siege to Soltaniyeh in 1384. Khorasan revolted one year later, so Timur destroyed Isfizar, and the prisoners were cemented into the walls alive. The next year the kingdom of Sistan, under the Mihrabanid dynasty, was ravaged, and its capital at Zaranj was destroyed. Timur then returned to his capital of Samarkand, where he began planning for his Georgian campaign and Golden Horde invasion. In 1386, Timur passed through Mazandaran as he had when trying to capture the Zagros. He went near the city of Soltaniyeh, which he had previously captured but instead turned north and captured Tabriz with little resistance, along with Maragha. He ordered heavy taxation of the people, which was collected by Adil Aqa, who was also given control over Soltaniyeh. Adil was later executed because Timur suspected him of corruption.

text: Timur then went north to begin his Georgian and Golden Horde campaigns, pausing his full-scale invasion of Persia. When he returned, he found his generals had done well in protecting the cities and lands he had conquered in Persia. Though many rebelled, and his son Miran Shah, who may have been regent, was forced to annex rebellious vassal dynasties, his holdings remained. So he proceeded to capture the rest of Persia, specifically the two major southern cities of Isfahan and Shiraz. When he arrived with his army at Isfahan in 1387, the city immediately surrendered; he treated it with relative mercy as he normally did with cities that surrendered (unlike Herat). However, after Isfahan revolted against Timur's taxes by killing the tax collectors and some of Timur's soldiers, he ordered the massacre of the city's citizens; the death toll is reckoned at between 100,000 and 200,000.[55] An eye-witness counted more than 28 towers constructed of about 1,500 heads each.[56] This has been described as a "systematic use of terror against towns...an integral element of Tamerlane's strategic element", which he viewed as preventing bloodshed by discouraging resistance. His massacres were selective and he spared the artistic and educated.[55] This would later influence the next great Persian conqueror: Nader Shah.

text: Timur then began a five-year campaign to the west in 1392, attacking Persian Kurdistan. In 1393, Shiraz was captured after surrendering, and the Muzaffarids became vassals of Timur, though prince Shah Mansur rebelled but was defeated, and the Muzafarids were annexed. Shortly after Georgia was devastated so that the Golden Horde could not use it to threaten northern Iran. In the same year, Timur caught Baghdad by surprise in August by marching there in only eight days from Shiraz. Sultan Ahmad Jalayir fled to Syria, where the Mamluk Sultan Barquq protected him and killed Timur’s envoys. Timur left the Sarbadar prince Khwaja Mas'ud to govern Baghdad, but he was driven out when Ahmad Jalayir returned. Ahmad was unpopular but got some dangerous help from Qara Yusuf of the Kara Koyunlu; he fled again in 1399, this time to the Ottomans.

text: Tokhtamysh–Timur war

text: In the meantime, Tokhtamysh, now khan of the Golden Horde, turned against his patron and in 1385 invaded Azerbaijan. The inevitable response by Timur resulted in the Tokhtamysh–Timur war. In the initial stage of the war, Timur won a victory at the Battle of the Kondurcha River. After the battle Tokhtamysh and some of his army were allowed to escape. After Tokhtamysh's initial defeat, Timur invaded Muscovy to the north of Tokhtamysh's holdings. Timur's army burned Ryazan and advanced on Moscow. He was pulled away before reaching the Oka River by Tokhtamysh's renewed campaign in the south.[57]

text: In the first phase of the conflict with Tokhtamysh, Timur led an army of over 100,000 men north for more than 700 miles into the steppe. He then rode west about 1,000 miles advancing in a front more than 10 miles wide. During this advance, Timur's army got far enough north to be in a region of very long summer days causing complaints by his Muslim soldiers about keeping a long schedule of prayers. It was then that Tokhtamysh's army was boxed in against the east bank of the Volga River in the Orenburg region and destroyed at the Battle of the Kondurcha River, in 1391.

text: In the second phase of the conflict, Timur took a different route against the enemy by invading the realm of Tokhtamysh via the Caucasus region. In 1395, Timur defeated Tokhtamysh in the Battle of the Terek River, concluding the struggle between the two monarchs. Tokhtamysh was unable to restore his power or prestige, and he was killed about a decade later in the area of present-day Tyumen. During the course of Timur's campaigns, his army destroyed Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde, and Astrakhan, subsequently disrupting the Golden Horde's Silk Road. The Golden Horde no longer held power after their losses to Timur.

text: Ismailis

text: In May 1393, Timur's army invaded the Anjudan, crippling the Ismaili village only a year after his assault on the Ismailis in Mazandaran. The village was prepared for the attack, evidenced by its fortress and system of underground tunnels. Undeterred, Timur's soldiers flooded the tunnels by cutting into a channel overhead. Timur's reasons for attacking this village are not yet well understood. However, it has been suggested that his religious persuasions and view of himself as an executor of divine will may have contributed to his motivations.[58] The Persian historian Khwandamir explains that an Ismaili presence was growing more politically powerful in Persian Iraq. A group of locals in the region was dissatisfied with this and, Khwandamir writes, these locals assembled and brought up their complaint with Timur, possibly provoking his attack on the Ismailis there.[58]

text: Campaign against the Tughlaq Dynasty

text:
In 1398, Timur invaded northern India, attacking the Delhi Sultanate ruled by Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq of the Tughlaq Dynasty. He was opposed by Ahirs and faced some reversals from the Jats, but the Sultanate at Delhi did nothing to stop him.[59][60]
After crossing the Indus river on 30 September 1398, he sacked Tulamba and massacred its inhabitants.[61] Then he advanced and captured Multan by October.[62]

text: Timur crossed the Indus River at Attock (now in Pakistan) on 24 September 1398. His invasion did not go unopposed and he encountered resistance from the Governor of Meerut during the march to Delhi. Timur was still able to continue his approach to Delhi, arriving in 1398, to fight the armies of Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq, which had already been weakened by a succession struggle within the royal family.

text: Capture of Delhi (1398)

text: The battle took place on 17 December 1398. Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq and the army of Mallu Iqbal[63] had war elephants armored with chain mail and poison on their tusks.[11]:267 As his Tatar forces were afraid of the elephants, Timur ordered his men to dig a trench in front of their positions. Timur then loaded his camels with as much wood and hay as they could carry. When the war elephants charged, Timur set the hay on fire and prodded the camels with iron sticks, causing them to charge at the elephants howling in pain: Timur had understood that elephants were easily panicked. Faced with the strange spectacle of camels flying straight at them with flames leaping from their backs, the elephants turned around and stampeded back toward their own lines. Timur capitalized on the subsequent disruption in the forces of Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq, securing an easy victory. Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq fled with remnants of his forces. Delhi was sacked and left in ruins. Before the battle for Delhi, Timur executed 100,000 captives.[16]

text: The capture of the Delhi Sultanate was one of Timur's greatest victories, arguably surpassing the likes of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan because of the harsh conditions of the journey and the achievement of taking down one of the richest cities at the time. After Delhi fell to Timur's army, uprisings by its citizens against the Turkic-Mongols began to occur, causing a retaliatory bloody massacre within the city walls. After three days of citizens uprising within Delhi, it was said that the city reeked of the decomposing bodies of its citizens with their heads being erected like structures and the bodies left as food for the birds by Timur's soldiers. Timur's invasion and destruction of Delhi continued the chaos that was still consuming India, and the city would not be able to recover from the great loss it suffered for almost a century.[11]:269–274

text: Campaigns in the Levant

text: Before the end of 1399, Timur started a war with Bayezid I, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and the Mamluk sultan of Egypt Nasir-ad-Din Faraj. Bayezid began annexing the territory of Turkmen and Muslim rulers in Anatolia. As Timur claimed sovereignty over the Turkmen rulers, they took refuge behind him.

text: In 1400, Timur invaded Christian Armenia and Georgia. Of the surviving population, more than 60,000 of the local people were captured as slaves, and many districts were depopulated.[64]

text: Then Timur turned his attention to Syria, sacking Aleppo[65][66] and Damascus.[67][68][69][70] The city's inhabitants were massacred, except for the artisans, who were deported to Samarkand. Timur cited the killing of Hasan ibn Ali by the Umayyad caliph Muawiyah I and the killing of Husayn ibn Ali by Yazid I as the reason for his massacre of the inhabitants of Damascus.

text: Timur invaded Baghdad in June 1401. After the capture of the city, 20,000 of its citizens were massacred. Timur ordered that every soldier should return with at least two severed human heads to show him. When they ran out of men to kill, many warriors killed prisoners captured earlier in the campaign, and when they ran out of prisoners to kill, many resorted to beheading their own wives.[71]

text: In the meantime, years of insulting letters had passed between Timur and Bayezid. Finally, Timur invaded Anatolia and defeated Bayezid in the Battle of Ankara on 20 July 1402. Bayezid was captured in battle and subsequently died in captivity, initiating the twelve-year Ottoman Interregnum period. Timur's stated motivation for attacking Bayezid and the Ottoman Empire was the restoration of Seljuq authority. Timur saw the Seljuks as the rightful rulers of Anatolia as they had been granted rule by Mongol conquerors, illustrating again Timur's interest with Genghizid legitimacy.

text: After the Ankara victory, Timur's army ravaged Western Anatolia, with Muslim writers complaining that the Timurid army acted more like a horde of savages than that of a civilized conqueror.[citation needed] But Timur did besiege and take the city of Smyrna, a stronghold of the Christian Knights Hospitalers, thus he referred to himself as ghazi or "Warrior of Islam". A mass beheading was carried out in Smyrna by Timur's soldiers.[72][73][74][75]

text: Timur was furious with the Genoese and Venetians, as their ships ferried the Ottoman army to safety in Thrace. As Lord Kinross reported in The Ottoman Centuries, the Italians preferred the enemy they could handle to the one they could not.

text: While Timur invaded Anatolia, Qara Yusuf assaulted Baghdad and captured it in 1402. Timur returned to Persia from Anatolia and sent his grandson Abu Bakr ibn Miran Shah to reconquer Baghdad, which he proceeded to do. Timur then spent some time in Ardabil, where he gave Ali Safavi, leader of the Safaviyya, a number of captives. Subsequently, he marched to Khorasan and then to Samarkhand, where he spent nine months celebrating and preparing to invade Mongolia and China.[76]

text: He ruled over an empire that, in modern times, extends from southeastern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, through Central Asia encompassing part of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and even approached Kashgar in China. The conquests of Timur are claimed to have caused the deaths of up to 17 million people, an assertion impossible to verify.[77]

text: Of Timur's four sons, two (Jahangir and Umar Shaikh) predeceased him. His third son, Miran Shah, died soon after Timur, leaving the youngest son, Shah Rukh. Although his designated successor was his grandson Pir Muhammad b. Jahangir, Timur was ultimately succeeded in power by his son Shah Rukh. His most illustrious descendant Babur founded the Islamic Mughal Empire and ruled over most of Afghanistan and North India. Babur's descendants Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, expanded the Mughal Empire to most of the Indian subcontinent.

text: Markham, in his introduction to the narrative of Clavijo's embassy, states that, after Timur died, his body "was embalmed with musk and rose water, wrapped in linen, laid in an ebony coffin and sent to Samarkand, where it was buried". His tomb, the Gur-e Amir, still stands in Samarkand, though it has been heavily restored in recent years.

text: Attempts to attack the Ming dynasty

text: By 1368, Han Chinese forces had driven the Mongols out of China. The first of the new Ming dynasty's emperors, the Hongwu Emperor, and his son, the Yongle Emperor, produced tributary states of many Central Asian countries. The suzerain-vassal relationship between Ming empire and Timurid existed for a long time. In 1394, Hongwu's ambassadors eventually presented Timur with a letter addressing him as a subject. He had the ambassadors Fu An, Guo Ji, and Liu Wei detained.[79] Neither Hongwu's next ambassador, Chen Dewen (1397), nor the delegation announcing the accession of the Yongle Emperor fared any better.[79]

text: Timur eventually planned to invade China. To this end Timur made an alliance with surviving Mongol tribes based in Mongolia and prepared all the way to Bukhara. Engke Khan sent his grandson Öljei Temür Khan, also known as "Buyanshir Khan" after he converted to Islam while at the court of Timur in Samarkand.[80]

text: Death

text: Timur preferred to fight his battles in the spring. However, he died en route during an uncharacteristic winter campaign. In December 1404, Timur began military campaigns against Ming China and detained a Ming envoy. He suffered illness while encamped on the farther side of the Syr Daria and died at Farab on February 17, 1405,[81] before ever reaching the Chinese border.[82] After his death the Ming envoys such as Fu An and the remaining entourage were released[79] by his grandson Khalil Sultan.

text: Timur was buried in Gur-i Amir, his mausoleum in Samarkand.

text: Succession

text: Just before his death, Timur designated his grandson Pir Muhammad ibn Jahangir as his successor. However, his other descendants did not abide by this wish, and spent the next fifteen years engaged in violent infighting. His son Shahrukh Mirza and grandson Khalil Sultan struggled for control until Shahrukh won.

text: Exchanges with Europe

text: Timur had numerous epistolary and diplomatic exchanges with various European states, especially Spain and France. Relations between the court of Henry III of Castile and that of Timur played an important part in medieval Castilian diplomacy. In 1402, the time of the Battle of Ankara, two Spanish ambassadors were already with Timur: Pelayo de Sotomayor and Fernando de Palazuelos. Later, Timur sent to the court of the Kingdom of León and Castile a Chagatai ambassador named Hajji Muhammad al-Qazi with letters and gifts.

text: In return, Henry III of Castile sent a famous embassy to Timur's court in Samarkand in 1403–06, led by Ruy González de Clavijo, with two other ambassadors, Alfonso Paez and Gomez de Salazar. On their return, Timur affirmed that he regarded the king of Castile "as his very own son".

text: According to Clavijo, Timur's good treatment of the Spanish delegation contrasted with the disdain shown by his host toward the envoys of the "lord of Cathay" (i.e., the Yongle Emperor), the Chinese ruler. Clavijo's visit to Samarkand allowed him to report to the European audience on the news from Cathay (China), which few Europeans had been able to visit directly in the century that had passed since the travels of Marco Polo.

text: The French archives preserve:

text:
A 30 July 1402 letter from Timur to Charles VI of France, suggesting that he send traders to Asia. It is written in Persian.[83]
A May 1403 letter. This is a Latin transcription of a letter from Timur to Charles VI, and another from Miran Shah, his son, to the Christian princes, announcing their victory over Bayezid I at Smyrna.[84]

text: A copy has been kept of the answer of Charles VI to Timur, dated 15 June 1403.[85]

text: Legacy

text: Timur's legacy is a mixed one. While Central Asia blossomed under his reign, other places, such as Baghdad, Damascus, Delhi and other Arab, Georgian, Persian, and Indian cities were sacked and destroyed and their populations massacred. He was responsible for the effective destruction of the Nestorian Christian Church of the East in much of Asia. Thus, while Timur still retains a positive image in Muslim Central Asia, he is vilified by many in Arabia, Iraq, Persia, and India, where some of his greatest atrocities were carried out. However, Ibn Khaldun praises Timur for having unified much of the Muslim world when other conquerors of the time could not.[86] The next great conqueror of the Middle East, Nader Shah, was greatly influenced by Timur and almost re-enacted Timur's conquests and battle strategies in his own campaigns. Like Timur, Nader Shah conquered most of Caucasia, Persia, and Central Asia along with also sacking Delhi.

text: Timur's short-lived empire also melded the Turko-Persian tradition in Transoxiana, and in most of the territories that he incorporated into his fiefdom, Persian became the primary language of administration and literary culture (diwan), regardless of ethnicity.[87] In addition, during his reign, some contributions to Turkic literature were penned, with Turkic cultural influence expanding and flourishing as a result. A literary form of Chagatai Turkic came into use alongside Persian as both a cultural and an official language.[88]

text: Tamerlane virtually exterminated the Church of the East, which had previously been a major branch of Christianity but afterwards became largely confined to a small area now known as the Assyrian Triangle.[89]

text: Timur became a relatively popular figure in Europe for centuries after his death, mainly because of his victory over the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid. The Ottoman armies were at the time invading Eastern Europe and Timur was ironically seen as an ally.

text: Timur has now been officially recognized as a national hero in Uzbekistan. His monument in Tashkent now occupies the place where Karl Marx's statue once stood.

text: Muhammad Iqbal, a philosopher, poet and politician in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement,[90][better source needed] composed a notable poem entitled Dream of Timur, the poem itself was inspired by a prayer of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II:[citation needed]

text: The Sharif of the Hijaz suffers due to the divisive sectarian schisms of his faith, And lo! that young Tatar (Timur) has boldly re-envisioned magnanimous victories of overwhelming conquest.

text: In 1794, Sake Dean Mahomed published his travel book, The Travels of Dean Mahomet. The book begins with the praise of Genghis Khan, Timur, and particularly the first Mughal emperor, Babur. He also gives important details on the then incumbent Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II.

text: Historical sources

text: The earliest known history of his reign was Nizam ad-Din Shami's Zafarnama, which was written during Timur's lifetime. Between 1424 and 1428, Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi wrote a second Zafarnama drawing heavily on Shami's earlier work. Ahmad ibn Arabshah wrote a much less favorable history in Arabic. Arabshah's history was translated into Latin by the Dutch Orientalist Jacobus Golius in 1636.

text: As Timurid-sponsored histories, the two Zafarnamas present a dramatically different picture from Arabshah's chronicle. William Jones remarked that the former presented Timur as a "liberal, benevolent and illustrious prince" while the latter painted him as "deformed and impious, of a low birth and detestable principles".[citation needed]

text: Malfuzat-i Timuri

text: The Malfuzat-i Timurī and the appended Tuzūk-i Tīmūrī, supposedly Timur's own autobiography, are almost certainly 17th-century fabrications.[16][91] The scholar Abu Taleb Hosayni presented the texts to the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, a distant descendant of Timur, in 1637–38, supposedly after discovering the Chagatai language originals in the library of a Yemeni ruler. Due to the distance between Yemen and Timur's base in Transoxiana and the lack of any other evidence of the originals, most historians consider the story highly implausible, and suspect Hosayni of inventing both the text and its origin story.[91]

text: European views

text: Timur arguably had a significant impact on the Renaissance culture and early modern Europe.[92] His achievements both fascinated and horrified Europeans from the fifteenth century to the early nineteenth century.

text: European views of Timur were mixed throughout the fifteenth century, with some European countries calling him an ally and others seeing him as a threat to Europe because of his rapid expansion and brutality.[93]:341

text: When Timur captured the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid at Ankara, he was often praised and seen as a trusted ally by European rulers, such as Charles VI of France and Henry IV of England, because they believed he was saving Christianity from the Turkish Empire in the Middle East. Those two kings also praised him because his victory at Ankara allowed Christian merchants to remain in the Middle East and allowed for their safe return home to both France and England. Timur was also praised because it was believed that he helped restore the right of passage for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land.[93]:341–44

text: Other Europeans viewed Timur as a barbaric enemy who presented a threat to both European culture and the religion of Christianity. His rise to power moved many leaders, such as Henry III of Castile, to send embassies to Samarkand to scout out Timur, learn about his people, make alliances with him, and try to convince him to convert to Christianity in order to avoid war.[93]:348–49

text: In the introduction to a 1723 translation of Yazdi's Zafarnama, the translator wrote:[94]

text: [M. Petis de la Croix] tells us, that there are calumnies and impostures, which have been published by authors of romances, and Turkish writers who were his enemies, and envious at his glory: among whom is Ahmed Bin Arabschah...As Timur-Bec had conquered the Turks and Arabians of Syria, and had even taken the Sultan Bajazet prisoner, it is no wonder that he has been misrepresented by the historians of those nations, who, in despite of truth, and against the dignity of history, have fallen into great excesses on this subject.

text: Exhumation and alleged curse

text: Timur's body was exhumed from his tomb on 19 June 1941 and his remains examined by the Soviet anthropologist Mikhail M. Gerasimov, Lev V. Oshanin and V. Ia. Zezenkova. It was determined that Timur was a tall and broad-chested man with strong cheek bones. At 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 meters), Timur was tall for his era. The examinations confirmed that Timur was lame and had a withered right arm due to his injuries. His right thighbone had knitted together with his kneecap, and the configuration of the knee joint suggests that he had kept his leg bent at all times and therefore would have had a pronounced limp.[95][96] Gerasimov reconstructed the likeness of Timur from his skull and found that Timur's facial characteristics displayed Mongoloid features with some Caucasoid admixture. Oshanin also concluded that Timur's cranium showed predominately the characteristics of a South Siberian Mongoloid type.[96]

text: It is alleged that Timur's tomb was inscribed with the words, "When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble." It is also said that when Gerasimov exhumed the body, an additional inscription inside the casket was found, which read, "Whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I."[97] In any case, three days after Gerasimov began the exhumation, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest military invasion of all time, upon the Soviet Union.[98] Timur was re-buried with full Islamic ritual in November 1942 just before the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad.[99]

text: In the arts

text:
Tamburlaine the Great, Parts I and II (English, 1563–1594): play by Christopher Marlowe
Tamerlane (1701): play by Nicholas Rowe (English)
Tamerlano (1724): opera by George Frideric Handel, in Italian, based on the 1675 play Tamerlan ou la mort de Bajazet by Jacques Pradon.
Bajazet (1735): opera by Antonio Vivaldi, portrays the capture of Bayezid I by Timur
Il gran Tamerlano (1772): opera by Josef Mysliveček that also portrays the capture of Bayezid I by Timur
Tamerlane: first published poem of Edgar Allan Poe (American, 1809–1849).
Timur is the deposed, blind former King of Tartary and father of the protagonist Calaf in the opera Turandot (1924) by Giacomo Puccini, libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.
Tamerlane (1928): historical novel by Harold Lamb.
Timour appears in the story Lord of Samarkand by Robert E. Howard.
Tamerlan: novel by Colombian writer Enrique Serrano in Spanish[100]
Tamburlaine: Shadow of God: a BBC Radio 3 play by John Fletcher, broadcast 2008, is a fictitious account of an encounter between Tamburlaine, Ibn Khaldun, and Hafez.

text: Gallery

text:
Geometric courtyard surrounding the tomb showing the Iwan, and dome.

View of the Registan.

Timurid Mosque in Herat.

Goharshad Mosque, Timurid architecture

Green Mosque (Balkh) is a Timurid mosque that inspired Shah Jahan.

Bibi-Khanym Mosque

Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, a prime example of Timurid architecture.

text: Consorts

text: Timur had forty-three consorts:

text:
Turmish Agha, mother of Jahangir Mirza, Jahanshah Mirza and Aka Begi;
Oljay Turkhan Agha (m. 1357/58), daughter of Amir Mashlah and granddaughter of Amir Qazaghan;
Saray Mulk Khanum (m. 1367), widow of Amir Husain, and daughter of Qazan Khan;
Islam Agha (m. 1367), widow of Amir Husain, and daughter of Amir Bayan Salduz;
Ulus Agha (m. 1367), widow of Amir Husain, and daughter of Amir Khizr Yasuri;
Dilshad Agha (m. 1374), daughter of Shams ed-Din and his wife Bujan Agha;
Touman Agha (m. 1377), daughter of Amir Musa and his wife Arzu Mulk Agha, daughter of Amir Bayezid Jalayir;
Chulpan Mulk Agha, daughter of Haji Beg of Jetah;
Tukal Khanum (m. 1395), daughter of Mongol Khan Khizr Khawaja Oglan;
Tolun Agha, concubine, and mother of Umar Shaikh Mirza I;
Mengli Agha, concubine, and mother of Miran Shah ibn Timur;
Toghay Turkhan Agha, lady from the Kara Khitai, widow of Amir Husain, and mother of Shahrukh Mirza ibn Timur;
Tughdi Bey Agha, daughter of Aq Sufi Qongirat;
Sultan Aray Agha, a Nukuz lady;
Malikanshah Agha, a Filuni lady;
Khand Malik Agha, mother of Ibrahim Mirza;
Sultan Agha, mother of a son who died in infancy;

text:
His other wives and concubines included:
Dawlat Tarkan Agha, Burhan Agha, Jani Beg Agha, Tini Beg Agha, Durr Sultan Agha, Munduz Agha, Bakht Sultan Agha, Nowruz Agha, Jahan Bakht Agha, Nigar Agha, Ruhparwar Agha, Dil Beg Agha, Dilshad Agha, Murad Beg Agha, Piruzbakht Agha, Khoshkeldi Agha, Dilkhosh Agha, Barat Bey Agha, Sevinch Malik Agha, Arzu Bey Agha, Yadgar Sultan Agha, Khudadad Agha, Bakht Nigar Agha, Qutlu Bey Agha, and another Nigar Agha.

text: Descendants of Timur

text: Sons of Timur

text:
Jahangir Mirza ibn Timur – with Turmish Agha;
Umar Shaikh Mirza I – with Tolun Agha;
Miran Shah ibn Timur – with Mengli Agha;
Shahrukh Mirza ibn Timur – with Toghay Turkhan Agha.

text: Daughters of Timur

text:
Aka Begi, married to Mohammad Bey, son of Amir Musa – with Turmish Agha;
unknown, married to Solyman Mirza – mother unknown;
unknown, married to Cumaleza Mirza – mother unknown;
Sultan Bakht Begum, married firstly Mohammed Mireke, married secondly, 1389/90, Soliman Shah – with Oljay Turkhan Agha.

text: Sons of Jahangir

text:
Muhammad Sultan bin Jahangir Mirza
Pir Muhammad bin Jahangir Mirza

text: Sons of Umar Shaikh Mirza I

text:
Pir Muhammad ibn Umar Shaikh Mirza I
Iskandar ibn Umar Shaikh Mirza I
Rustam ibn Umar Shaikh Mirza I
Bayqarah ibn Umar Shaikh Mirza I
Mansur ibn Bayqarah
Husayn ibn Mansur bin Bayqarah
Badi' al-Zaman
Muhammed Mu'min
Muzaffar Hussein
Ibrahim Hussein

text: Sons of Miran Shah

text:
Khalil Sultan ibn Miran Shah
Abu Bakr ibn Miran Shah
Muhammad ibn Miran Shah
Abu Sa'id Mirza
Umar Shaikh Mirza II
Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur
the Mughals
Jahangir Mirza II

text: Sons of Shahrukh Mirza

text:
Mirza Muhammad Taraghay – better known as Ulugh Beg
Abdul-Latif
Ghiyath-al-Din Baysonqor
Ala-ud-Daulah Mirza ibn Baysonqor
Ibrahim Mirza
Sultan Muhammad ibn Baysonqor
Yadigar Muhammad
Mirza Abul-Qasim Babur ibn Baysonqor
Sultan Ibrahim Mirza
Abdullah Mirza
Mirza Soyurghatmïsh Khan
Mirza Mohammed Juki


document_title: Snake River

question_text: how far is snake river from boise idaho

question_tokens: how far is snake river from boise idaho

root

text: Snake River

text: Course[edit]

text: Formed by the confluence of three tiny streams on the southwest flank of Two Oceans Plateau in Yellowstone National Park, western Wyoming, the Snake starts out flowing west and south into Jackson Lake. Its first 50 miles (80 km) run through Jackson Hole, a wide valley between the Teton Range and the Gros Ventre Range. Below the tourist town of Jackson, the river turns west and flows through Snake River Canyon, cutting through the Snake River Range and into eastern Idaho. It receives the Hoback and Greys Rivers before entering Palisades Reservoir, where the Salt River joins at the mouth of Star Valley. Below Palisades Dam, the Snake River flows through the Snake River Plain, a vast arid physiographic province extending through southern Idaho south-west of the Rocky Mountains and underlain by the Snake River Aquifer, one of the most productive aquifers in the United States.[11][12][13][14][15]

tag: p

text: Southwest of Rexburg, Idaho, the Snake is joined from the north by Henrys Fork. The Henrys Fork is sometimes called the North Fork of the Snake River, with the main Snake above their confluence known as the "South Fork". From there it turns south, flowing through downtown Idaho Falls, then past the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and into American Falls Reservoir, where it is joined by the Portneuf River. The Portneuf River Valley is an overflow channel that in the last glacial period carried floodwaters from pluvial Lake Bonneville into the Snake River, significantly altering the landscape of the Snake River Plain through massive erosion. From there the Snake resumes its journey west, entering the Snake River Canyon of Idaho. It is interrupted by several major cataracts, the largest being 212-foot (65 m) Shoshone Falls, which historically marked the upriver limit of migrating salmon.[11][16] A short distance downstream it passes under the Perrine Bridge.[12][17] Near Twin Falls, the Snake approaches the southernmost point in its entire course, after which it starts to flow west-northwest.[11][12][14][15]

text: The Snake continues through its canyon, receiving the Malad River from the east near Bliss and then the Bruneau River from the south in C.J. Strike Reservoir. It passes through an agricultural valley about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Boise and flows briefly west into Oregon, before turning north to define the Idaho–Oregon border. Here the Snake River almost doubles in size as it receives several major tributaries – the Owyhee from the southwest, then the Boise and Payette rivers from the east, and further downstream the Malheur River from the west and Weiser River from the east. North of Boise, the Snake enters Hells Canyon, a steep, spectacular, rapid-strewn gorge that cuts through the Salmon River Mountains and Blue Mountains of Idaho and Oregon. Hells Canyon is one of the most rugged and treacherous portions of the course of the Snake River, posing a major obstacle for 19th-century American explorers. Here the Snake is also impounded by Hells Canyon, Oxbow, and Brownlee Dams, which together make up the Hells Canyon Hydroelectric Project.[11][14][15][18]

text: At the halfway point in Hells Canyon, in one of the most remote and inaccessible sections of its course, the Snake River is joined from the east by its largest tributary, the Salmon River. From there, the Snake begins to form the Washington–Idaho border, receiving the Grande Ronde River from the west before receiving the Clearwater River from the east at Lewiston, which marks the head of navigation on the Snake. The river leaves Hells Canyon and turns west, winding through the Palouse Hills of eastern Washington. The Lower Snake River Project's four dams and navigation locks have transformed this part of the Snake River into a series of reservoirs. The confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers at Burbank, Washington is part of Lake Wallula, the reservoir of McNary Dam. The Columbia River flows about 325 miles (523 km) further west to the Pacific Ocean near Astoria, Oregon.[11][14][15]

text: Geology[edit]

text: As recently as 165 million years ago, most of western North America was still part of the Pacific Ocean. The nearly complete subduction of the Farallon Plate underneath the westward-moving North American Plate created the Rocky Mountains, which were pushed up by rising magma trapped between the sinking Farallon plate and the North American plate. As the North American Plate moved westwards over a stationary hotspot beneath the crust, a series of tremendous lava flows and volcanic eruptions carved out the Snake River Plain beginning about 12 million years ago, west of the Continental Divide.[19]  Even larger lava flows of Columbia River basalts issued over eastern Washington, forming the Columbia Plateau southeast of the Columbia River and the Palouse Hills in the lower Snake.[20] Separate volcanic activity formed the northwestern portion of the plain, an area far from the path of the hotspot which now lies beneath Yellowstone National Park.[19] At this point, the Snake River watershed was beginning to take shape.

text: The Snake River Plain and the gap between the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range together formed a "moisture channel," opening the way for Pacific storms to travel more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) inland to the headwaters of the Snake River. When the Teton Range uplifted about 9 million years ago along a detachment fault running north–south through the central Rockies,[21] the river maintained its original course and cut through the southern end of the mountains, forming the Snake River Canyon of Wyoming. About 6 million years ago, the Salmon River Mountains and Blue Mountains at the far end of the plain began to rise; the river cut through these mountains as well, forming Hells Canyon. Lake Idaho, formed during the Miocene, covered a large portion of the Snake River Plain between Twin Falls and Hells Canyon, and its lava dam was finally breached about 2 million years ago.[22]

text: Lava flowing from Cedar Butte in present southeast Idaho blocked the Snake River at Eagle Rock about 42,000 years ago, near the present-day site of American Falls Dam. A 40-mile-long (64 km) lake, known as American Falls Lake, formed behind the barrier. The lake was stable and survived for nearly 30,000 years. About 14,500 years ago, pluvial Lake Bonneville in the Great Salt Lake area, formed in the last glacial period, spilled catastrophically down the Portneuf River into the Snake in an event known as the Bonneville Flood.[23] This was one of the first in a series of catastrophic flooding events in the Northwest known as the Ice Age Floods.

text: The deluge caused American Falls Lake to breach its natural lava dam, which was rapidly eroded with only the 50-foot-high (15 m) American Falls left in the end. The flood waters of Lake Bonneville, approximately twenty times the flow of the Columbia River or 5 million ft3/s (140,000 m3/s), swept down the Snake River and across the entirety of southern Idaho. For miles on either side of the river, flood waters stripped away soils and scoured the underlying basalt bedrock, forming the Snake River Canyon and creating Shoshone Falls, Twin Falls, Crane Falls, Swan Falls and other waterfalls along the Idaho section of the river.[24] The Bonneville flood waters continued through Hells Canyon and eventually reached the Columbia River. The flood widened Hells Canyon but did not deepen it.[25][26]

text: As the Bonneville Floods rushed down the Snake River, the Missoula Floods occurred in the same period, but originating farther north. The Missoula Floods, which occurred more than 40 times between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago, were caused by Glacial Lake Missoula on the Clark Fork repeatedly being impounded by ice dams then breaking through, with the lake's water rushing over much of eastern Washington in massive surges far larger than the Lake Bonneville Flood. These floods pooled behind the Cascade Range into enormous lakes and spilled over the northern drainage divide of the Snake River watershed, carving deep canyons through the Palouse Hills including the Palouse River canyon and Palouse Falls. The Lake Bonneville Floods and the Missoula Floods helped widen and deepen the Columbia River Gorge, a giant water gap which allows water from the Columbia and Snake rivers to take a direct route through the Cascade Range to the Pacific.[25][27][28]

text: The massive amounts of sediment deposited by the Lake Bonneville Floods in the Snake River Plain also had a lasting effect on most of the middle Snake River. The high hydraulic conductivity of the mostly-basalt rocks in the plain led to the formation of the Snake River Aquifer, one of the most productive aquifers in North America. Many rivers and streams flowing from the north side of the plain sink into the aquifer instead of flowing into the Snake River, a group of watersheds called the lost streams of Idaho.[29] The aquifer filled to hold nearly 100,000,000 acre feet (120 km3) of water, underlying about 10,000 square miles (26,000 km2) in a plume 1,300 feet (400 m) thick.[30] In places, water exits from rivers at rates of nearly 600 cubic feet per second (17 m3/s).[24] Much of the water lost by the Snake River as it transects the plain issues back into the river at its western end, by way of many artesian springs.[13][31][32]

text: Watershed[edit]

text: The Snake River is the thirteenth longest river in the United States.[9] Its watershed is the 10th largest among North American rivers, and covers almost 108,000 square miles (280,000 km2) in portions of six U.S. states: Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and Washington, with the largest portion in Idaho. Most of the Snake River watershed lies between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Columbia Plateau on the northwest. The largest tributary of the Columbia River, the Snake River watershed makes up about 41% of the entire Columbia River Basin. Its average discharge at the mouth constitutes 31% of the Columbia's flow at that point.[33][34] Above the confluence, the Snake is slightly longer than the Columbia—1,078 miles (1,735 km)[5] compared to 928 miles (1,493 km)[35]—and its drainage basin is slightly larger—4% bigger than the upstream Columbia River watershed.[6][36]

text: The mostly semi-arid, even desert climate of the Snake River watershed on average, receives less than 12 inches (300 mm) of precipitation per year. However, precipitation in the Snake River watershed varies widely. At Twin Falls, in the center of the Snake River Plain, the climate is nearly desert, with an annual rainfall of just 9.24 inches (235 mm), although the average snowfall is 13.1 inches (330 mm).[37] This desert climate occupies the majority of the basin of the Snake River, so although it is longer than the Columbia River above the Tri-Cities, its discharge is on average significantly less. However, in the high Rockies of Wyoming, in the upper Jackson Hole area, the average precipitation is over 30 inches (760 mm), and snowfall averages 252 inches (6,400 mm).[38] Most of the Snake River basin consists of wide, arid plains and rolling hills, bordered by high mountains. In the upper parts of the watershed, however, the river flows through an area with a distinct alpine climate. There are also stretches where the river and its tributaries have incised themselves into tight gorges. The Snake River watershed includes parts of Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, and many other national and state parks.

text: Much of the area along the river, within a few miles of its banks, is irrigated farmland, especially in its middle and lower course. Irrigation dams include American Falls Dam, Minidoka Dam, and C.J. Strike Dam. Aside from water from the river, water is also pulled from the Snake River Aquifer for irrigation. Major cities along the river include Jackson in Wyoming, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Boise, and Lewiston in Idaho, and the Tri-Cities in Washington (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland). There are fifteen dams in total along the Snake River, which aside from irrigation, also produce electricity, maintain a navigation channel along part of the river's route, and provide flood control.[39] However, fish passage is limited to the stretch below Hells Canyon.[40]

text:
The Snake River watershed is bounded by several other major North American watersheds, which drain both to the Atlantic or the Pacific, or into endorheic basins. On the southwest side a divide separates the Snake watershed from Oregon's Harney Basin, which is endorheic. On the south, the Snake watershed borders that of the Humboldt River in Nevada, and the watershed of the Great Salt Lake (the Bear, Jordan and Weber rivers) on the south.[41]
The Snake River also shares a boundary with the Green River to the southeast; the Green River drains parts of Wyoming and Utah and is the largest tributary of the Colorado River. On the western extremity for a short stretch the Continental Divide separates the Snake watershed from the Bighorn River, a tributary of the Yellowstone River, which the Snake begins near. On the north the Snake River watershed is bounded by the Red Rock River, a tributary of the Beaverhead River, which flows into the Jefferson River and into the Missouri River, part of the Gulf of Mexico drainage basin.[41]

text: The rest of the Snake River watershed borders on several other major Columbia River tributaries - mostly the Spokane River to the north, but also Clark Fork in Montana to the northeast and the John Day River to the west. Of these, the Clark Fork (via the Pend Oreille River) and the Spokane join the Columbia above the Snake, while the John Day joins downstream of the Snake, in the Columbia River Gorge. It is of note that the northeastern divide of the Snake River watershed forms the Idaho-Montana boundary, so the Snake River watershed does not extend into Montana.[41]

text: Mountain ranges in the Snake watershed include the Teton Range, Bitterroot Range, Clearwater Mountains, Seven Devils Mountains, and the extreme northwestern end of the Wind River Range. Grand Teton is the highest point in the Snake River watershed, reaching 13,775 feet (4,199 m) in elevation. The elevation of the Snake River is 358 feet (109 m) when it joins the Columbia River.[2]

text: Pollution[edit]

text: Agricultural runoff from farms and ranches in the Snake River Plain and many other areas has severely damaged the ecology of the river throughout the 20th century. After the first irrigation dams on the river began operation in the first decade of the 20th century, much of the arable land in a strip a few miles wide along the Snake River was cultivated or turned to pasture, and agricultural return flows began to pollute the Snake. Runoff from several feedlots was dumped into the river until laws made the practice illegal.[42] Fertilizer, manure and other chemicals and pollutants washed into the river greatly increase the nutrient load, especially of phosphorus, fecal coliforms and nitrogen. During low water, algae blooms occur throughout the calm stretches of the river, depleting its oxygen supply.[43]

text: Much of the return flows do not issue directly back into the Snake River, but rather feed the Snake River Aquifer underneath the Snake River Plain. Water diverted from the river for irrigation, after absorbing any surface pollutants, re-enters the ground and feeds the aquifer. Although the aquifer has maintained its level, it has become increasingly laced with contaminants. Water in the aquifer eventually travels to the west side of the Snake River Plain and re-enters the river as springs.[44] Throughout much of the Snake River Plain and Hells Canyon, excessive sediment is also a recurring problem.[45] In December 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a permit requiring owners of fish farms along the Snake River to reduce their phosphorus discharge by 40%. Pollutant levels in Hells Canyon upstream of the Salmon River confluence, including that of water temperature, dissolved nutrients, and sediment, are required to meet certain levels.[46]

text: Discharge[edit]

text: The Snake River's average flow is 54,830 cubic feet per second (1,553 m3/s). The United States Geological Survey recorded the river's discharge from a period of 1963–2000 at a stream gauge below Ice Harbor Dam. In that period, the largest average annual flow recorded was 84,190 cu ft/s (2,384 m3/s) in 1997, and the lowest was 27,100 cu ft/s (770 m3/s) in 1992.[7] The lowest recorded daily mean flow was 2,700 cu ft/s (76 m3/s) on February 4, 1979. On August 27, 1965, there was temporarily no flow as a result of testing at Ice Harbor Dam. The highest recorded flow was 312,000 cu ft/s (8,800 m3/s) on June 19, 1974.[7] The highest flow ever recorded on the Snake River was at a different USGS stream gauge near Clarkston, which operated from 1915 to 1972. This gauge recorded a maximum flow of 369,000 cu ft/s (10,400 m3/s)—more than the Columbia's average discharge—on May 29, 1948. An even larger peak discharge, estimated at 409,000 cu ft/s (11,600 m3/s), occurred during the flood of June 1894.[8]

text: The river's flow is also measured at several other points in its course. Above Jackson Lake, Wyoming, the discharge is about 885 cu ft/s (25.1 m3/s) from a drainage area of 486 square miles (1,260 km2).[47] At Minidoka, Idaho, about halfway through the Snake River Plain, the river's discharge rises to 7,841 cu ft/s (222.0 m3/s).[48] However, at Buhl, Idaho, only about 50 miles (80 km) downstream, the river's flow decreases to 4,908 cu ft/s (139.0 m3/s) because of agricultural diversions and seepage.[49] But at the border of Idaho and Oregon, near Weiser at the beginning of Hells Canyon, the Snake's flow rises to 17,780 cu ft/s (503 m3/s) after receiving several major tributaries such as the Payette, Owyhee and Malheur.[50] The discharge further increases to 19,530 cu ft/s (553 m3/s) at Hells Canyon Dam on the border of Idaho and Oregon.[51] At Anatone, Washington, downstream of the confluence with the Salmon, one of the Snake's largest tributaries, the mean discharge is 34,560 cu ft/s (979 m3/s).[52]

text: History[edit]

text: Name[edit]

text:
Canadian explorer David Thompson first recorded the Native American name of the Snake River as Shawpatin when he arrived at its mouth by boat in 1800. When the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed westwards into the Snake River watershed in 1805, they first gave it the name Lewis River, Lewis Fork or Lewis's Fork, as Meriwether Lewis was the first of their group to sight the river.[53]
They also made note of the "Snake Indians" who lived along the river, who were actually the Shoshone tribe, and learned that the Native Americans called the river Ki-moo-e-nim or Yam-pah-pa (for an herb that grew prolifically along its banks).[54]
Later American explorers, some of whom were originally part of the Lewis and Clark expedition, journeyed into the Snake River watershed and records show a variety of names have been associated with the river. The explorer Wilson Price Hunt of the Astor Expedition named the river as Mad River. Others gave the river names including Shoshone River (after the tribe) and Saptin River.[2] Eventually, the name Snake River was derived from an S-shaped gesture the Shoshone tribe made with their hands to represent swimming salmon. Explorers misinterpreted it to represent a snake, giving the river its present-day name.[55]

text: Early inhabitants[edit]

text: People have been living along the Snake River for at least 11,000 years. Historian Daniel S. Meatte divides the prehistory of the western Snake River Basin into three main phases or "adaptive systems". The first he calls "Broad Spectrum Foraging", dating from 11,500 to 4,200 years before present. During this period people drew upon a wide variety of food resources. The second period, "Semisedentary Foraging", dates from 4,200–250 years before present and is distinctive for an increased reliance upon fish, especially salmon, as well as food preservation and storage. The third phase, from 250 to 100 years before present, he calls "Equestrian Foragers". It is characterized by large horse-mounted tribes that spent long amounts of time away from their local foraging range hunting bison.[56] In the eastern Snake River Plain there is some evidence of Clovis, Folsom, and Plano cultures dating back over 10,000 years ago.

text: Early fur traders and explorers noted regional trading centers, and archaeological evidence has shown some to be of considerable antiquity. One such trading center in the Weiser area existed as early as 4,500 years ago. The Fremont culture may have contributed to the historic Shoshones, but it is not well understood. Another poorly understood early cultural component is called the Midvale Complex. The introduction of the horse to the Snake River Plain around 1700 helped in establishing the Shoshone and Northern Paiute cultures.[57][58]

text: On the Snake River in southeastern Washington there are several ancient sites. One of the oldest and most well-known is called the Marmes Rockshelter, which was used from over 11,000 years ago to relatively recent times. The Marmes Rockshelter was flooded in 1968 by Lake Herbert G. West, the Lower Monumental Dam's reservoir.[59]

text: Eventually, two large Native American groups controlled most of the Snake River: the Nez Perce, whose territory stretched from the southeastern Columbia Plateau into northern Oregon and western Idaho, and the Shoshone, who occupied the Snake River Plain both above and below Shoshone Falls. Lifestyles along the Snake River varied widely. Below Shoshone Falls, the economy centered on salmon, who often came up the river in enormous numbers. Salmon were the mainstay of the Nez Perce and most of the other tribes below Shoshone Falls. Above the falls, life was significantly different. The Snake River Plain forms one of the only relatively easy paths across the main Rocky Mountains for many hundreds of miles, allowing Native Americans both east and west of the mountains to interact. As a result, the Shoshone centered on a trading economy.

text: According to legend, the Nez Perce tribe was first founded in the valley of the Clearwater River, one of the Snake River's lowermost major tributaries. At its height, there were at least 27 Nez Perce settlements along the Clearwater River and 11 more on the Snake between the mouth of the Clearwater and Imnaha Rivers. There were also villages on the Salmon River, Grande Ronde River, Tucannon River, and the lower Hells Canyon area. The Snake River's annual salmon run, which was estimated at that time to exceed four million in good years, supported the Nez Perce, who lived in permanent, well-defined villages, unlike the nomadic southeastern tribes along the Snake River. The Nez Perce also were involved in trade with the Flathead tribe to the north and other middle Columbia River tribes. However, they were enemies to the Shoshone and the other upstream Snake River tribes.[60]

text: The Shoshone or Shoshoni were characterized by nomadic groups that took their culture from the earlier Bitterroot culture and Great Basin tribes that migrated north via the Owyhee River. They were the most powerful tribe in the Rocky Mountains area, and were known to many Great Plains tribes as the "Snakes". In the 18th century, Shoshone territory extended beyond the Snake River Plain, extending over the Continental Divide into the upper Missouri River watershed and even further north into Canada.[61] A smallpox epidemic brought by European explorers and fur trappers was responsible for wiping out much of the Shoshone east of the Rocky Mountains, but the Shoshone continued to occupy the Snake River Plain. Eventually, the Shoshone culture merged with that of the Paiute and Bannock tribes, which came from the Great Basin and the Hells Canyon area, respectively. The Bannock brought with them the skill of buffalo hunting and horses they had acquired from Europeans, changing the Shoshone way of life significantly.[62]

text: Exploration and settling[edit]

text: The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–06) was the first American group to cross the Rocky Mountains and sail down the Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean.[63] Meriwether Lewis supposedly became the first American to sight the drainage basin of the Snake River after he crossed the mountains a few days ahead of his party on August 12, 1805, and sighted the Salmon River valley (a major Snake tributary) from Lemhi Pass, a few miles from the present-day site of Salmon, Idaho. The party later traveled north, descended the Lemhi River to the Salmon and attempted to descend it to the Snake, but found it impassable because of its violent rapids. The expedition named the Snake River the Lewis River, Lewis's River, or Lewis Fork, in his honor, and they traveled northwards to the Lochsa River, which they traveled via the Clearwater River into the lower Snake, and into the Columbia. They also referred to the Shoshone Indians as the "Snake Indians", which became the present-day name of the river.[64][65] The name "Lewis Fork", however, did not last.[63]

text:
Later American explorers traveled throughout the Snake River area and up its major tributaries beginning in 1806, just after Lewis and Clark had returned. The first was John Ordway in 1806, who also explored the lower Salmon River. John Colter in 1808 was the first to sight the upper headwaters of the Snake River, including the Jackson Hole area.[66]
In 1810, Andrew Henry, along with a party of fur trappers, discovered the Henrys Fork of the Snake River, which is now named after him. Donald Mackenzie sailed the lower Snake River in 1811, and later explorers included Wilson Price Hunt of the Astor Expedition (who gave the river the name "Mad River"),[67] Ramsay Crooks, Francisco Payelle, John Grey, Thyery Goddin, and many others after the 1830s.[66] Many of these later explorers were original members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition who had returned to map and explore the area in greater detail. Even later, American fur trappers scouted the area for beaver streams, but Canadian trappers from the British Hudson's Bay Company were by now a major competitor.

text: The Hudson's Bay Company first sent fur trappers into the Snake River watershed in 1819. The party of three traveled into the headwaters of the Owyhee River, a major southern tributary of the Snake, but disappeared.[68] Meanwhile, as American fur trappers kept coming to the region, the Hudson's Bay Company ordered the Canadian trappers to kill as many beavers as they could, eventually nearly eradicating the species from the Snake River watershed, under the "rationale [that] if there are no beavers, there will be no reason for the Yanks ([Americans]) to come."[68] Their goal was to eventually gain rights over the Oregon Territory, a region covering Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming (most of the present-day region called the Pacific Northwest).[69] However, the area was eventually annexed into the United States.

text: By the middle 19th century, the Oregon Trail had been established, generally following much of the Snake River. One crossing the trail made over the Snake River was near the present-day site of Glenns Ferry. Several years later, a ferry was established at the site, replacing the old system where pioneers had to ford the wide, powerful and deep Snake. Another place where pioneers crossed the Snake was further upstream, at a place called "Three Island Crossing", near the mouth of the Boise River. This area has a group of three islands (hence the name) that splits the Snake into four channels each about 200 feet (61 m) wide. Some emigrants chose to ford the Snake and proceed down the west side and recross the river near Fort Boise into Hells Canyon, continue down the drier east side into the gorge, or float the Snake and Columbia to the Willamette River, the destination of the Oregon Trail. The reason for the Three Island Crossing was the better availability of grass and water access.[70] Numerous ferries have provided crossings of the upper Snake from the Brownlee Ferry at the head of Hell's Canyon[71] to Menor's Ferry,[72] which operates today at Moose, Wyoming. Sophistication varied from reed boats pulled by Indians on horse back at Snake Fort, Fort Boise, as described by Narcissa Whitman[73] in 1836 to an electric operated ferry, the Swan Falls Ferry,[74] at Swan Falls Dam of the early 20th century.

text: Steamboats[edit]

text: Unlike the Columbia River, it was far more difficult for steamboats to navigate on the Snake. The Columbia River drops 2,690 feet (820 m) from source to mouth, while the Snake drops over 8,500 feet (2,600 m) in elevation over a length more than 200 miles (320 km) shorter. Still, from the 1860s to the 1940s, steamboats traveled on the Snake River from its mouth at the Columbia River to near the mouth of the Imnaha River in lower Hells Canyon.[75] However, most of the steamboats only sailed from the river's mouth to Lewiston, located at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers.[76] This stretch of the river is the easiest to navigate for watercraft since it has the least elevation change, although it still contained over 60 sets of rapids.[77]

text: Passenger and freight service downstream of Lewiston lasted throughout the late 19th century and persisted until the introduction of railroads in the Palouse Hills grain-growing region and ultimately, the construction of dams on the lower Snake to facilitate barge traffic, which caused the demise of both the steamboats and the railroad. Lewiston, 140 miles (230 km) from the confluence of the Snake and Columbia and 465 miles (748 km) from the mouth of the Columbia on the Pacific Ocean, became connected with Portland and other Pacific ports via steamboat service from the mouth of the Snake through the Columbia River Gorge.[78] A commonly traveled route was from Wallula, Washington, 120 miles (190 km) downstream of the Snake River's mouth, upstream to Lewiston.[79] The Oregon Steam Navigation Company launched the Shoshone at Fort Boise in 1866 which provided passenger and freight service on the upper Snake for the Boise and Owyhee mines.[80]

text: By the 1870s, the OSN Company, owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad, was operating seven steamboats for transporting wheat and grain from the productive Palouse region along the Snake and Columbia to lower Columbia River ports. These boats were the Harvest Queen, John Gates, Spokane, Annie Faxon, Mountain Queen, R.R. Thompson, and Wide West, all of which were built on the Columbia River.[81] However, there were more resources along the Snake River than wheat and grain. In the 1890s, a huge copper deposit was discovered at Eureka Bar in Hells Canyon. Several ships were built specifically to transport ore from there to Lewiston: these included Imnaha, Mountain Gem, and Norma.[82] In 1893 the Annie Faxon suffered a boiler explosion and sank on the Snake below Lewiston.[76][83]

text: River modifications[edit]

text: Dams[edit]

text: A total of fifteen dams have been constructed along the Snake River for a multitude of different purposes, from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to its mouth on Lake Wallula, the reservoir formed behind McNary Dam on the Columbia River. Dams on the Snake can be grouped into three major categories. From its headwaters to the beginning of Hells Canyon, many small dams block the Snake to provide irrigation water. Between here and Hells Canyon, the first dam on the Snake, Swan Falls Dam, was built in 1901. In Hells Canyon, a cascade of dams produce hydroelectricity from the river's steep fall over a comparatively short distance. Finally, a third cascade of dams, from Hells Canyon to the mouth, facilitates navigation. Many different government and private agencies have worked to build dams on the Snake River, which now serve an important purpose for people living in the drainage basin and trade of agricultural products to Pacific seaports.

text:
The Minidoka Irrigation Project of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, created with the passage of the Reclamation Act of 1902, involved the diversion of Snake River water into the Snake River Plain upstream of Shoshone Falls in order to irrigate approximately 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) in the Snake River Plain and store 4,100,000 acre feet (5.1 km3) of water in Snake River reservoirs.[84]
The first studies for irrigation in the Snake River Plain were conducted by the United States Geological Survey in the late 19th century, and the project was authorized on April 23, 1904.[85] The first dam constructed for the project was Minidoka Dam in 1904; its power plant began operating in 1909, producing 7 MW of electricity. This capacity was revised to 20 MW in 1993.[86]

text: Jackson Lake Dam, far upstream in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park, was built in 1907 to raise Jackson Lake for providing additional water storage in dry years. American Falls Dam, upstream of Minidoka, was completed in 1927 and replaced in 1978.[85] As the dams were constructed above Shoshone Falls, the historical upriver limit of salmon and also a total barrier to boats and ships, no provisions were made for fish passage or navigation. Several other irrigation dams were also built - including Twin Falls Dam and Palisades Dam.

text: The Hells Canyon Project was built and maintained by Idaho Power Company starting in the 1940s, and was the second of the three major water projects on the river. The three dams of the project, Brownlee Dam, Oxbow Dam and Hells Canyon Dam, are located in upper Hells Canyon. All three dams are primarily for power generation and flood control, and do not have fish passage or navigation locks.[87]

text: Brownlee Dam, the most upriver dam, was constructed in 1959, and generates 728 megawatts (MW). Oxbow Dam, the second dam in the project, was built in 1961 and generates 220 MW. The dam was named for a 3-mile-wide (4.8 km) bend in the Snake River, shaped like an oxbow. Hells Canyon Dam was the last and most downriver of the three. It was constructed in 1967 and generates 450 MW.[39]

text: Downriver of Hells Canyon is the Lower Snake River Project, authorized by the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1945 for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create a navigable channel on the Snake River from its mouth to the beginning of Hells Canyon.[88] These dams are, from upstream to downstream: Lower Granite Lock and Dam, Little Goose Lock and Dam, Lower Monumental Lock and Dam, and Ice Harbor Lock and Dam. Dredging work was also done throughout the length of the navigation channel to facilitate ship passage. These dams form a cascade of reservoirs with no stretches of free-flowing river in between. Immediately below Ice Harbor Dam is Lake Wallula, formed by the construction of the McNary Dam on the Columbia River. (McNary Dam is not part of the Lower Snake River Project.) Above Lower Granite Dam, the river channel from Lewiston to Johnson Bar, just below Hells Canyon, is also maintained for jet-boats as this section is too rugged for ships.[89]

text: These dams have been proposed for removal, and if they were to be removed, it would be the largest dam removal project ever undertaken in the United States.[90] The removal has been proposed on the grounds that it would restore salmon runs to the lower Snake River and the Clearwater River and other smaller tributaries.[91] Idaho's Snake river once teemed with sockeye salmon. However, there are almost no wild sockeye salmon left in the river due to a number of factors.

text: There are many reasons why Sockeye Salmon in the Snake River are reduced in number. One reason is that the river runs through three different states, and is over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) long. Salmon swimming upstream in this river are faced with predators and dams. The Snake River has fifteen dams and is extremely difficult for salmon to access because of hydroelectric dams. Hell's Canyon Dam blocks passage to the entire upper Snake River. The Grand Coulee Dam also blocks spawning grounds to the famous "June Hogs" (legendary Chinook salmon that weighed over 100 pounds [45 kg]).

text: Between 1985 and 2007, only an average of 18 sockeye salmon returned to Idaho each year. Serious conservation efforts by wildlife biologists and fish hatcheries have captured the few remaining wild sockeye salmon, collected their sperm and eggs, and in a laboratory, have them spawn. Instead of spawning naturally, these sockeye begin their lives in an incubator in a fishery biologist's laboratory. These baby salmon then are transported by ship, bypassing the dams. (The dams can hurt juvenile baby sockeye salmon with their powerful tides and currents, which suck the baby salmon down.) Another conservation effort that has helped the salmon recover, is the destruction of old, outdated dams, such as the Lewiston Dam on the Clearwater River, a tributary of the Snake. After destroying the dam, salmon populations noticeably recovered.[92]

text: Another interesting recovery method conservationists and biologists are using is called Fish Transportation. Since many juvenile salmon perish at each dam while swimming out to the ocean, massive ships filter and collect these baby salmon by size and take them out to the ocean for a ride, where they can be guaranteed to make it alive to saltwater. This method raises controversy to the effectiveness and costs, since this method is extremely expensive, almost costing $15 million. Another similar method to transport fish across the dams is the "Fish Gun" method. Engineers at Whooshh Innovations have developed a "Whooshh Fish Transport System" that literally collects salmon and shoots them above the dam at high speed in an effort to get them across the dams.[93]

text: Overall, these combined efforts have had good success. In the summer of 2006, the Snake River reportedly only had 3 sockeye salmon that returned to their spawning grounds.  In the summer of 2013, more than 13,000 sockeye salmon returned to the spawning grounds.[94]

text: Navigation[edit]

text: In the 1960s and 1970s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built four dams and locks on the lower Snake River to facilitate shipping. The lower Columbia River has likewise been dammed for navigation. Thus a deep shipping channel through locks and slackwater reservoirs for heavy barges exists from the Pacific Ocean to Lewiston, Idaho. Most barge traffic originating on the Snake River goes to deep-water ports on the lower Columbia River, such as Portland. Grain, mostly wheat, is the main product shipped from the Snake, and nearly all of it is exported internationally from the lower Columbia River ports.

text: The shipping channel is authorized to be at least 14 feet (4 m) deep and 250 feet (76 m) wide. Where river depths were less than 14 feet (4 m), the shipping channel has been dredged in most places. Dredging and redredging work is ongoing and actual depths vary over time.[95] With a channel about 5 feet (1.5 m) deeper than the Mississippi River system, the Columbia and Snake rivers can float barges twice as heavy.[96] Agricultural products from Idaho and eastern Washington are among the main goods transported by barge on the Snake and Columbia rivers. Grain, mainly wheat, accounts for more than 85% of the cargo barged on the lower Snake River. In 1998, over 123,000,000 US bushels (4.3×109 l; 980,000,000 US dry gal; 950,000,000 imp gal) of grain were barged on the Snake. Before the completion of the lower Snake dams, grain from the region was transported by truck or rail to Columbia River ports around the Tri-Cities. Other products barged on the lower Snake River include peas, lentils, forest products, and petroleum.[95]

text: Biology[edit]

text: The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) divides the Snake River's watershed into two freshwater ecoregions: the "Columbia Unglaciated" ecoregion and the "Upper Snake" ecoregion. Shoshone Falls marks the boundary between the two. The WWF placed the ecoregion boundary about 50 kilometres (31 mi) downriver from Shoshone Falls in order to include the Big Wood River (the main tributary of the Malad River) in the Upper Snake ecoregion, because the Wood River is biologically distinct from the rest of the downriver Snake. Shoshone Falls has presented a total barrier to the upstream movement of fish for 30,000 to 60,000 years. As a result, only 35% of the fish fauna above the falls, and 40% of the Wood River's fish fauna, are shared with the lower Snake River.[97][98]

text: The Upper Snake freshwater ecoregion includes most of southeastern Idaho and extends into small portions of Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, including major freshwater habitats such as Jackson Lake. Compared to the lower Snake River and the rest of the Columbia River's watershed, the Upper Snake ecoregion has a high level of endemism, especially among freshwater molluscs such as snails and clams. There are at least 21 snail and clam species of special concern, including 15 that appear to exist only in single clusters. There are 14 fish species found in the Upper Snake region that do not occur elsewhere in the Columbia's watershed, but which do occur in Bonneville freshwater ecoregion of western Utah, part of the Great Basin and related to the prehistoric Lake Bonneville. The Wood River sculpin (Cottus leiopomus) is endemic to the Wood River. The Shoshone sculpin (Cottus greenei) is endemic to the small portion of the Snake River between Shoshone Falls and the Wood River.[99]

text: The Snake River below Shoshone Falls is home to thirty-five native fish species, of which twelve are also found in the Columbia River and four of which are endemic to the Snake: the relict sand roller (Percopsis transmontana) of the Percopsidae family, the shorthead sculpin (Cottus confusus), the maginated sculpin (Cottus marginatus), and the Oregon chub (Oregonichthys crameri). The Oregon chub is also found in the Umpqua River and nearby basins. The lower Snake River also supports seven species of Pacific salmon and trout (Oncorhynchus). There are also high, often localized levels of mollusc endemism, especially in Hells Canyon and the basins of the Clearwater River, Salmon River, and middle Snake River. The mollusc richness extends into the lower Columbia River and tributaries such as the Deschutes River.[99]

text: Animals[edit]

text: Aside from aquatic species, much of the Snake River watershed supports larger animals including numerous species of mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. Especially in the headwaters and the other mountainous areas strewn throughout the watershed, the gray wolf, grizzly bear, wolverine, mountain lion and Canada lynx are common. It has been determined that there are 97 species of mammals in the upper part of the Snake River, upstream from the Henrys Fork confluence.[12] Pronghorn and bighorn sheep are common in the area drained by the "lost streams of Idaho", several rivers and large creeks that flow south from the Rocky Mountains and disappear into the Snake River Aquifer. About 274 bird species, some endangered or threatened, use the Snake River watershed, including bald eagle, peregrine falcon, whooping crane, greater sage-grouse, and yellow-billed cuckoo. Barrow's goldeneye are a species of bird that occurs commonly along the lower section of the Snake River.[12]

text: Ten amphibian and twenty species of reptiles inhabit the upper Snake River's wetland and riparian zones. Several species of frogs are common in the "lost streams" basin and the northeasternmost part of the Snake River watershed, including the inland tailed frog, northern leopard frog, western toad, Columbia spotted frog, long-toed salamander, spadefoot toad.[12] However, in the lower and middle portions of the Snake River watershed, several native species have been severely impacted by agriculture practices and the resulting non-native species supported by them. Introduced birds include the gray partridge, ring-necked pheasant, and chukar. Other non-native species include the bullfrog, brown-headed cowbird, and European starling, attracted by the construction of cities and towns.[100]

text: Plants[edit]

text: The Snake River watershed includes a diversity of vegetation zones both past and present.[12] A majority of the watershed was once covered with shrub-steppe grassland, most common in the Snake River Plain and also the Columbia Plateau in southeastern Washington. Riparian zones, wetlands and marshes once occurred along the length of the Snake River and its tributaries. In higher elevations, conifer forests, of which ponderosa pine is most common, dominate the landscape. The basin ranges from semi-desert to alpine climates, providing habitat for hundreds of species of plants. In the lowermost part of the watershed, in southeastern Washington, the Snake River is surrounded by an area called the Columbia Plateau Ecoprovince, which is now mostly occupied by irrigated farms. The rest of the Plateau area is characterized by low hills, dry lakes, and an arid, nearly desert climate.[100]

text: The headwaters of the Snake River and the high mountains elsewhere in the watershed were historically heavily forested. These include aspen, Douglas fir, and spruce fir, comprising about 20% of the historic watershed. At the base of mountains and in the Lost River basin, sagebrush was and is the predominant vegetation cover. Because of deforestation, up to one quarter of the forests have been taken over by sagebrush, leaving the remaining forests to cover about 15% of the watershed. However, the lodgepole pine has increased in number, taking over historic stands of other conifers. There are also up to 118 species of rare or endemic plants that occur in the Snake River watershed.[12]

text: Salmon and other anadromous fish[edit]

text:
The Snake River was once one of the most important rivers for the spawning of anadromous fish—which are hatched in the headwaters of rivers, live in the ocean for most of their lives, and return to the river to spawn—in the United States.[101][102]
The river supported species including chinook salmon, coho salmon, and sockeye salmon, as well as steelhead, white sturgeon, and Pacific lamprey. It is known that before the construction of dams on the river, there were three major chinook salmon runs in the Snake River; in the spring, summer and fall, totaling about 120,000 fish, and the sockeye salmon run was about 150,000. The historical barrier to fish migration on the Snake River was Shoshone Falls, a waterfall that occurs as the Snake River passes through the Snake River Plain.[101]

text: Since the early 20th century, when Swan Falls Dam was constructed on the middle Snake River upstream of Hells Canyon, the fifteen dams and reservoirs on the river have posed an increasing problem for migrating salmon. Agricultural lands and their resulting runoff have also had a significant impact on the success rate of migrating fish. Salmon can travel up the Snake River as far as Hells Canyon Dam, using the fish passage facilities of the four lower Snake River dams, leaving the Clearwater, Grande Ronde and Salmon river to sustain spawning salmon. Rising in several forks in the Clearwater Mountains of central Idaho, the Clearwater and Salmon River watersheds are nearly undeveloped with the enormous exception of Dworshak Dam on the North Fork Clearwater River. The watershed of the Grande Ronde in northeastern Oregon is also largely undeveloped. The four reservoirs formed by the lower Snake River dams—Lake Sacagawea, Lake Herbert G. West, Lake Bryan, and Lower Granite Lake—have also formed problems, as the downstream current in the pools is often not enough for the fish to sense, confusing their migration routes.[18][103]

text: At the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, young salmon that swim down from spawning gravels in the headwaters of the Clearwater River often delay their migrations because of a significant temperature difference. (Prior to the removal of Lewiston Dam on the main Clearwater and Grangeville Dam on the South Fork Clearwater, the Clearwater was completely unusable by migrating salmon.[104]) Agricultural runoff and water held in reservoirs higher upstream on the Snake warm its waters as it flows through the Snake River Plain, so as the Snake meets the Clearwater, its average temperature is much higher. Directly below the confluence, the river flows into Lower Granite Lake, formed by Lower Granite Dam, the uppermost dam of the Lower Snake River Project. Paradoxically, the combination of these factors gives the young salmon further time to grow and to feed in Lower Granite Lake, so when they begin the migration to the Pacific Ocean, they often have a higher chance at survival, compared to those salmon who migrate to the ocean earlier.[103]

text: Lower Snake River dam removal[edit]

text: A controversy has erupted since the late 20th century over the four lower Snake River dams, with the primary argument being that removing the dams would allow anadromous fish to reach the lower Snake River tributaries—the Clearwater River, the Tucannon River and the Grande Ronde River—and spawn in much higher numbers. However, removal of the dams has been fiercely opposed by some groups in the Pacific Northwest.[105] Because much of the electricity in the Northwest comes from dams, removing the four dams would create a hole in the energy grid that would not be immediately replaceable.[106] Navigation on the lower Snake would also suffer, as submerged riffles, rapids and islands would be exposed by the removal of the dams. Irrigation pumps for fields in southeastern Washington would also have to reach further to access the water of the Snake River. However, aside from restoring salmon runs, dam removal proponents argue that the power is replaceable, that the grain transportation system could be replaced by railroads, and that only one of the four reservoirs supplies irrigation water. Irrigators in the Snake River Plain would likely need to allow less water into the Snake River during low flow in order to create a current in the four lower reservoirs, and recreation and tourism would likely benefit.[107]

text: Tributaries[edit]

text: The Salmon River is the second largest tributary.  Although the Salmon has a larger drainage than the Clearwater, the Salmon drains much drier country and therefore has a smaller discharger than the Clearwater, about 8,000,000 acre feet (9.9 km3) annually compared to about 11,000,000 acre feet (14 km3) annually for the Clearwater River.

text: The Snake River has over 20 major tributaries, most of which are in the mountainous regions of the basin. The largest by far is the Clearwater River, which drains 9,000 square miles (23,000 km2) in north central Idaho.  Many of the rivers that flow into the Snake River Plain from the north sink into the Snake River Aquifer, but still contribute their water to the river. Aside from rivers, the Snake is fed by many significant springs, many of which arise from the aquifer on the west side of the plain.[12]

text:
Name

Length

Watershed size

Bank

Source to Wyoming-Idaho Border

Heart River

8 1⁄2 mi (14 km)

Right

Lewis River

12 mi (19 km)

Right

Gros Ventre River

642 sq mi (1,660 km2)

Left

Hoback River

55 mi (89 km)

600 sq mi (1,600 km2)

Left

Greys River

65 mi (105 km)

800 sq mi (2,100 km2)

Left

Salt River

70 mi (113 km)

890 sq mi (2,300 km2)

Left

Snake River Plain to Hells Canyon

Henrys Fork (Snake River)

110 mi (177 km)

3,212 sq mi (8,320 km2)

Right

Portneuf River

96 mi (154 km)

1,329 sq mi (3,440 km2)

Left

Raft River

1,506 sq mi (3,900 km2)

Left

Malad River

11 1⁄2 mi (19 km)

3,000 sq mi (7,800 km2)

Right

Salmon Falls Creek

218 mi (351 km)

2,082 sq mi (5,390 km2)

Left

Bruneau River

3,305 sq mi (8,560 km2)

Left

Boise River

75 mi (121 km)

4,100 sq mi (11,000 km2)

Right

Owyhee River

280 mi (451 km)

11,049 sq mi (28,620 km2)

Left

Malheur River

165 mi (266 km)

4,700 sq mi (12,000 km2)

Right

Payette River

62 mi (100 km)

3,240 sq mi (8,400 km2)

Right

Hells Canyon

Weiser River

90 mi (145 km)

1,660 sq mi (4,300 km2)

Right

Burnt River

50 mi (80 km)

Left

Salmon River

425 mi (684 km)

14,000 sq mi (36,000 km2)

Right

Grande Ronde River

212 mi (341 km)

4,000 sq mi (10,000 km2)

Left

Clearwater River

80 mi (129 km)

9,645 sq mi (24,980 km2)

Right

Idaho-Washington border to mouth

Tucannon River

70 mi (113 km)

503 sq mi (1,300 km2)

Left

Palouse River

140 mi (225 km)

3,303 sq mi (8,550 km2)

Right

tag: table


document_title: I Can't Say Goodbye (Kim Wilde song)

question_text: who wrote i still can't say goodbye

question_tokens: who wrote i still ca n 't say goodbye

text: I Can't Say Goodbye (Kim Wilde song)

text:
"I Can't Say Goodbye"

Single by Kim Wilde

from the album Love Moves

B-side
"Sanjazz Megamix"

Released
3 December 1990

Format
7", 12", Cassette single, CD-single

Genre
Pop

Length
5:00 (Album Version)
4:12 (7" Version)

Label
MCA

Songwriter(s)
Kim Wilde, Ricki Wilde

Producer(s)
Ricki Wilde

Kim Wilde singles chronology

"Can't Get Enough (of Your Love)"
(1990)
"I Can't Say Goodbye"
(1990)
"World in Perfect Harmony"
(1991)

"Can't Get Enough (of Your Love)"
(1990)
"I Can't Say Goodbye"
(1990)
"World in Perfect Harmony"
(1991)

text: "I Can't Say Goodbye" is the fourth single from Love Moves, the 1990 album by Kim Wilde.

text: The single was released exclusively in the UK (the third UK single from the album). The ballad, which featured backing vocals by Jaki Graham, was edited for the 7" format and extended for the 12" and CD-single formats. The B-side was a megamix of some of Wilde's songs entitled "Sanjazz Megamix", an edit of which was used for the 7".

text: Chart performance[edit]

text:
Chart (1991)
Peak
position

UK Singles Chart[1]
51