The first Biblical mention of the Euphrates river is found in the book of Genesis: "The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. . . Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. . . The fourth river is the Euphrates." (Genesis 2:8, 10, 14, NKJV)
The Euphrates river, which begins at the place where the Karasu and Murat rivers join in northeastern Turkey, is the longest river in Southwest Asia. The distance from the source of the Murat River to the place where the Euphrates joins with the Tigris river (near Basra, Iraq) is 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles). The Euphrates provided the water that led to the first flowering of civilization in Sumer dating from about the 4th millennium B.C. Many important ancient cities were located on or near its riverside, including Nippur, Shuruppak, Uruk, Eridu and Ur (where Abraham was born). For several centuries the Euphrates river was the eastern limit of effective Egyptian and Roman empire control. The region between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers is called Mesopotamia. This area has been labeled "the cradle of civilization" in part because it was the place where writing and the wheel were invented. Mesopotamia eventually became the heartland of the Babylonian and Assyrian world empires. In the end time God will cause the Euphrates river to DRY UP so that the armies of the world can gather together, along with the beast and false prophet, to FIGHT Jesus Christ as he returns to earth: "Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared . . . For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty . . . And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, ARMAGEDDON." (Revelation 16:12, 14,16, NKJV)
Sources: Wikipedia | 
