Mareb River

Dry river bed of the Gash in Kassala

Template: Infobox River / Obsolete

The Mareb ( as the European case, actually Märäb; lowland Gash or al - Qash called ) is the northernmost of the north-west flowing rivers in the highlands of Abyssinia. He is seasonal, and forms part of the border of Ethiopia to Eritrea.

Geography

According to the Statistical Abstract of Ethiopia for 1967/68 the Mareb is 440 km in length. He entspring about 15 km south-west of Asmara. He first runs south to the Ethiopischen border. Then to the northwest until it reaches the level of Sudan near Kassala. In the Eritrean lowlands of the River Gash is called (after the Sudanese border al - Qash ) and is the administrative region of Gash Barka her name. Most of the time the year is the Mareb dry, but it can just as the Tekeze Setit the rainy season swell suddenly. Unlike the other large rivers on this side of the Ethiopian highlands, the Mareb opens only during extreme floods in the Atbara and thus into the Nile. In general, it seeps into the sand of the Sudanese plane. The information on catchment area are very contradictory and are 21000-44000 km ².

Only the left bank of the upper course lies on Ethiopian territory. The main tributaries are the Obel on the right bank and Sarana, Balasa and ' Engweya left.

History

History of the Mareb is interesting as the boundary between the territories of two Ethiopian nobleman at the time of the Middle Ages: the stretcher negasch or Bahri Negassi, short form Bahr walkies ( Tigrinya " King of the Sea ", ie of the sea closest part of the Abyssinian highlands ) north of the flow and Makonnen of Tigray in the south. The areas of the stretcher negasch extended to the coast of the Red Sea in the north, its capital was usually Debarwa in today's Eritrea, about 20 miles south of Asmara.