major river of northern India, primarily in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh states. One of the country's most sacred rivers, it rises on the slopes of the Banderpunch massif in the Great Himalayas (Himalayas) near Yamnotri (Jamnotri), Uttarakhand. It flows in a southerly direction through the Himalayan foothills and, exiting Uttarakhand, onto the Indo-Gangetic Plain, along the Uttar Pradesh–Haryana state border. The Eastern and Western Yamuna canals are fed from the river at that point.

The Yamuna then passes Delhi, where it feeds the Agra Canal. South of Delhi, and now wholly within Uttar Pradesh, it turns southeastward near Mathura and passes Agra, Firozabad, and Etawah. Below Etawah it receives a number of southern tributaries, the largest of which are the Chambal (Chambal River), the Sindh, the Betwa (Betwa River), and the Ken. Near Allahabad, after a course of about 855 miles (1,376 km), the Yamuna joins the Ganges (Ganga) River (Ganges River); their confluence is an especially sacred place to Hindus.