The river rises at Yüğlük Dağı in the Taurus mountains and flows through deep gorges to the southwest until it reaches the Mediterranean Sea at Limonlu (the ancient Antiochia Lamotis) in the district of Erdemli.

In the town of Limonlu, about 500 metres west of the river mouth on a flat hill on the right bank is the Medieval castle Lamos Kalesi [de].

The ancient name of the river was Lamos (Λάμος, Latinised as Lamus, Arabic: اللامس, al-Lāmis).

[1] Later it formed the eastern edge of the Byzantine theme of Seleucia (Silifke), part of the border region of the empire known as the Kleisoura.

The first of these exchanges occurred in 797 or 805 in the reign of the Caliph Harun ar-Rashid and the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus I.