The Aksu is a river of Antalya Province

Antalya Province

Antalya Province is located on the Mediterranean coast of south-west Turkey, between the Taurus Mountains and the Mediterranean sea.Antalya Province is the centre of Turkey's tourism industry, attracting 30% of foreign tourists visiting Turkey. The province of Antalya corresponds to the lands of...

 (southwestern Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

), which rises in the mountains of Toros

Taurus Mountains

Taurus Mountains are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, dividing the Mediterranean coastal region of southern Turkey from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğirdir in the west to the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the east...

. The course of the Aksu is between the Düden to the west and of the Köprüçay to the east.

Classical times

The river is mentioned by Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera and died c. AD 45.His short work occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print. It is laconic in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing...

 as a navigable river, and as being navigable as far upriver as Perga

Perga

Perga was an ancient Greek city in Anatolia and the capital of Pamphylia, now in Antalya province on the southwestern Mediterranean coast of Turkey. Today it is a large site of ancient ruins east of Antalya on the coastal plain. Located there is an acropolis dating back to the Bronze Age...

, 60 stadia

Ancient Greek units of measurement

Ancient Greek units of measurement would later create the foundation of Egyptian, and formed the basis of the later Roman system.Generally speaking, standards of measurement within the ancient Greek world varied according to location and epoch. Systems of ancient weights and measures evolved as...

 (about 11.1 kilometres (6.9 mi)) from its mouth, according to Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

.

Today

The Aksu is 100 metres (328.1 ft) wide at its mouth, and 3 metres (9.8 ft) deep within the bar, which extends across the mouth, and so shallow in places in its delta as to be impassable to boats that draw more than 1 foot (0.3048 m) of water. The swell from the sea meeting the stream generally produces a violent surf.

At its headwaters is the Kovada Lake and just below that the Karacaören Dam reservoir.