Uttar Pradesh: Bijnor, Fatehgarh, Kannauj, Hardoi, Bithoor, Kanpur, Lucknow (Gomti tributary), Prayagraj, Mirzapur, Varanasi, Ghazipur, Ballia, Kasganj, Farrukhabad, Narora Bihar: Begusarai, Bhagalpur, Patna, Vaishali, Munger, Khagaria, Katihar Jharkhand: Sahibganj West Bengal: Murshidabad, Palashi, Nabadwip, Shantipur, Kolkata, Serampore, Chinsurah, Baranagar, Diamond Harbour, Haldia, Budge Budge, Howrah, Uluberia, Barrackpore Delhi: (Yamuna) tributary Rajshahi Division: Rajshahi, Pabna, Ishwardi Dhaka Division: Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur, Munshiganj, Faridpur Chittagong Division: Chandpur, Noakhali 43,900 m3/s (1,550,000 cu ft/s)[3] The Ganges (/ˈɡændʒiːz/ GAN-jeez; in India: Ganga, /ˈɡʌŋɡɑː/ GUNG-ah; in Bangladesh: Padma, /ˈpʌdmə/ PUD-mə)[5][6][7][8] is a trans-boundary river of Asia which flows through India and Bangladesh.

[13] It has been important historically, with many former provincial or imperial capitals such as Pataliputra,[14] Kannauj,[14] Sonargaon, Dhaka, Bikrampur, Kara, Munger, Kashi, Patna, Hajipur, Kanpur, Delhi, Bhagalpur, Murshidabad, Baharampur, Kampilya, and Kolkata located on its banks or those of its tributaries and connected waterways.

The Bhagirathi rises at the foot of Gangotri Glacier at Gomukh, at an elevation of 4,356 m (14,291 ft) and was mythologically referred to as residing in the matted locks of Shiva; symbolically Tapovan, which is a meadow of ethereal beauty at the feet of Mount Shivling, just 5 km (3.1 mi) away.

[19] At Haridwar, a headworks diverts some of its water into the Ganges Canal, which irrigates the Doab region of Uttar Pradesh,[23] whereas the river, whose course has been roughly southwest until this point, now begins to flow southeast through the plains of northern India.

[24] The Ganges joins the 1,444 km (897 mi) long River Yamuna at the Triveni Sangam at Prayagraj (previously Allahabad), a confluence considered holy in Hinduism.

Along the way between Prayagraj and Malda, West Bengal, the Ganges river passes the towns of Chunar, Mirzapur, Varanasi, Ghazipur, Ara, Patna, Chapra, Hajipur, Mokama, Begusarai, Munger, Sahibganj, Rajmahal, Bhagalpur, Ballia, Buxar, Simaria, Sultanganj, and Farakka.

Just before the border with Bangladesh the Farakka Barrage controls the flow of Ganges, diverting some of the water into a feeder canal linked to the Hooghly for the purpose of keeping it relatively silt-free.

Now this river, which at its source is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties its waters into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gangaridai, a nation which possesses a vast force of the largest-sized elephants."

[69] As Vishnu as the avatar Vamana completes his celebrated three strides —of earth, sky, and heaven— he stubs his toe on the vault of heaven, punches open a hole and releases the Vishnupadi, which until now had been circling the cosmic egg.

[71] Told and retold in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and several Puranas, the story begins with a sage, Kapila, whose intense meditation has been disturbed by the sixty thousand sons of King Sagara.

However, since her turbulent force would also shatter the earth, Bhagiratha persuades Shiva in his abode on Mount Kailash to receive the Ganges in the coils of his tangled hair and break her fall.

[72] As the Triloka-patha-gamini, (Sanskrit: triloka = "three worlds", patha = "road", gamini = "one who travels") of the tradition, she flows in heaven, earth, and the netherworld, and, consequently, is a "tirtha" or crossing point of all beings, the living as well as the dead.

Necklace adorning the worlds!Banner rising to heaven!I ask that I may leave of this body on your banks,Drinking your water, rolling in your waves,Remembering your name, bestowing my gaze upon you.

[74] If the ashes have been immersed in another body of water, a relative can still gain salvation for the deceased by journeying to the Ganges, if possible during the lunar "fortnight of the ancestors" in the Hindu calendar month of Ashwin (September or October), and performing the Shraddha rites.

"[76] As if to illustrate this truism, the Kashi Khanda (Varanasi Chapter) of the Skanda Purana recounts the remarkable story of Vahika, a profligate and unrepentant sinner, who is killed by a tiger in the forest.

[81] The war-god Skanda addresses the sage Agastya in the Kashi Khand of the Skanda Purana in these words:[81] One should not be amazed ... that this Ganges is really Power, for is she not the Supreme Shakti of the Eternal Shiva, taken in the form of water?This Ganges, filled with the sweet wine of compassion, was sent out for the salvation of the world by Shiva, the Lord of the Lords.Good people should not think this Triple-Pathed River to be like the thousand other earthly rivers, filled with water.

[88] As protector of the sanctum sanctorum, the goddess soon came to be depicted with several characteristic accessories: the makara (a crocodile-like undersea monster, often shown with an elephant-like trunk), the kumbha (an overfull vase), various overhead parasol-like coverings, and a gradually increasing retinue of humans.

Here, in the Cave V, flanking the main figure of Vishnu shown in his boar incarnation, two river goddesses, Ganga and Yamuna appear atop their respective mounts, makara and kurma (a turtle or tortoise).

As the iconography evolved, sculptors, especially in central India, were producing animated scenes of the goddess, replete with an entourage and suggestive of a queen en route to a river to bathe.

[107] Contemplated first by Col. John Russell Colvin in 1836, it did not at first elicit much enthusiasm from its eventual architect Sir Proby Thomas Cautley, who balked at the idea of cutting a canal through extensive low-lying land to reach the drier upland destination.

In 1839, the Governor General of India, Lord Auckland, with the Court's assent, granted funds to Cautley for a full survey of the swath of land that underlay and fringed the projected course of the canal.

The Court of Directors, moreover, considerably enlarged the scope of the projected canal, which, in consequence of the severity and geographical extent of the famine, they now deemed to be the entire Doab region.

Although the intervening impasse had seemingly affected Cautley's health and required him to return to Britain in 1845 for recuperation, his European sojourn gave him an opportunity to study contemporary hydraulic works in the United Kingdom and Italy.

[109] According to historian Ian Stone: It was the largest canal ever attempted in the world, five times greater in its length than all the main irrigation lines of Lombardy and Egypt put together, and longer by a third than even the largest USA navigation canal, the Pennsylvania Canal.A major barrage at Farakka was opened on 21 April 1975,[110] It is located close to the point where the main flow of the river enters Bangladesh, and the tributary Hooghly (also known as Bhagirathi) continues in West Bengal past Kolkata.

This barrage, which feeds the Hooghly branch of the river by a 42 km (26 mi) long feeder canal, and its water flow management has been a long-lingering source of dispute with Bangladesh.

10 billion, around US$226 million, or less than 4 cents per person per year,[150] were spent on the Ganga Action Plan,[18] an environmental initiative that was "the largest single attempt to clean up a polluted river anywhere in the world".

"[161] The incidence of water-borne and enteric diseases—such as gastrointestinal disease, cholera, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid—among people who use the river's waters for bathing, washing dishes and brushing teeth is high, at an estimated 66% per year.

[142] Recent studies by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) say that the river is so full of killer pollutants that those living along its banks in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Bengal are more prone to cancer than anywhere else in the country.

According to Deputy Director-General of NCRP A. Nandkumar, the incidence of cancer was highest in the country in areas drained by the Ganges and stated that the problem would be studied deeply and with the findings presented in a report to the health ministry.

[165]Illegal mining in the Ganges river bed for stones and sand for construction work has long been a problem in Haridwar district, Uttarakhand, where it touches the plains for the first time.