river, Central Asia. It rises on the western slopes of the rugged Selseleh-ye Kūh-e Bābā range, an outlier of the Hindu Kush mountains, in central Afghanistan. Flowing west past Chaghcharān and the ancient city of Herāt (whence its name is derived), then north, it forms sections of the Afghan–Iranian and Iranian–Turkmen frontiers. After crossing into Turkmenistan, where it is called the Tejen, the river disappears into the wastes of the Karakum Desert. The Harīrūd irrigates some of Afghanistan's productive, cultivated land. Its estimated length is 700 miles (1,100 km).