Kaveri

The Kaveri rises at Talakaveri in the misty hills of Kodagu (Coorg) in Karnataka's Western Ghats, where a small tank marks its source. It flows east across the Karnataka plateau, around the river islands of Srirangapatna and Shivanasamudra, tumbles over waterfalls and then crosses into Tamil Nadu through the narrow Hogenakkal gorge.

In Tamil Nadu the Kaveri feeds the Mettur reservoir and then spreads into one of the oldest irrigated deltas in the world around Thanjavur – the "rice bowl" of Tamil Nadu. The Grand Anicut (Kallanai), an ancient stone weir attributed to the Chola king Karikala, still regulates its waters. The river finally reaches the Bay of Bengal near Poompuhar.

Temple towns such as Srirangam, Kumbakonam and Thanjavur grew along the Kaveri, and the sharing of its waters between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has been one of India's best-known inter-state questions, settled through tribunal and Supreme Court decisions.