Tajikistan is nestled between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to the north and west, China to the east, and Afghanistan to the south. Mountains cover 93 percent of Tajikistan's surface area. The two principal ranges, the Pamir Mountains and the Alay Mountains, give rise to many glacier-fed streams and rivers, which have been used to irrigate farmlands since ancient times. Central Asia's other major mountain range, the Tian Shan, skirts northern Tajikistan. Mountainous terrain separates Tajikistan's two population centers, which are in the lowlands of the southern (Panj River) and northern (Fergana Valley) sections of the country.[1] Especially in areas of intensive agricultural and industrial activity, the Soviet Union's natural resource utilization policies left independent Tajikistan with a legacy of environmental problems.[2]
With an area of 142,600km2 (55,100sqmi), Tajikistan has a maximum east-to-west extent of 700km (430mi), and a maximum north-to-south extent of 350km (220mi). The country's highly irregular border is 3,651km (2,269mi) long, including 414km (257mi) along the Chinese border to the east and 1,206km (749mi) along the frontier with Afghanistan to the south. Most of the southern border with Afghanistan is defined by the Amu Darya (darya is the Persian word for river) and its tributary the Panj River (Darya-ye Panj), which has headwaters in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The other neighbors are the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan (to the west and the north) and Kyrgyzstan (to the north).[1]
Topography and drainage
Detailed map of TajikistanTopography of Tajikistan
The lower elevations of Tajikistan are divided into northern and southern regions by a complex of three mountain chains that constitute the westernmost extension of the massive Tian Shan system. Running essentially parallel from east to west, the chains are the Turkestan, Zeravshan (Zarafshan), and Hisor (Gissar) mountains. The last of these lies just north of the capital, Dushanbe, which is situated in west-central Tajikistan.[3]
More than half of Tajikistan lies above an elevation of 3,000 metres (9,800ft). Even the lowlands, which are located in the Fergana Valley in the far north and in Khatlon Province in the southwest, are well above sea level. In the Turkestan range, highest of the western chains, the maximum elevation is 5,510 metres (18,080ft). The highest elevations of this range are in the east, near the border with Kyrgyzstan. That region is dominated by the peaks of the Pamir-Alay mountain system, including two of the three highest elevations in the former Soviet Union: Mount Lenin — 7,134 metres (23,406ft) and Ismoil Somoni Peak — 7,495 metres (24,590ft). Several other peaks in the region also exceed 7,000 metres (23,000ft). The mountains contain numerous glaciers, the largest of which, Fedchenko Glacier, covers more than 700 square kilometres (270sqmi) and is the largest glacier in the world outside the polar regions. Because Tajikistan lies in an active seismic belt, severe earthquakes are common.[3]
Fergana Valley
The Fergana Valley, the most densely populated region in Central Asia irrigated by the Syr Darya in its upper course, spreads across the north-eastern arm of Uzbekistan and Northern Tajikistan. This long valley, which lies between two mountain ranges — the Kuramin Range in the north and the Turkestan Range in the south, reaches its lowest elevation of 320 metres (1,050ft) at Khujand on the Syr Darya. Rivers bring rich soil deposits into the Fergana Valley from the surrounding mountains, creating a series of fertile oases that have long been prized for agriculture.[3]
Drainage
In Tajikistan's dense river network, the largest rivers are the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya; the largest tributaries are the Vakhsh and the Kofarnihon, which form valleys from northeast to southwest across western Tajikistan. The Amu Darya carries more water than any other river in Central Asia. The upper course of the Amu Darya, called the Panj River, is 921 kilometres (572mi) long. The river's name changes at the confluence of the Panj, the Vakhsh, and the Kofarnihon rivers in far southwestern Tajikistan. The Vakhsh, called the Kyzyl-Suu ("red water" in Turkic languages) upstream in Kyrgyzstan and the Surkhob in its middle course in north-central Tajikistan, is the second largest river in southern Tajikistan after the Amu-Panj system. In the Soviet era, the Vakhsh was dammed at several points for irrigation and electric power generation, most notably at Norak (Nurek), east of Dushanbe, where one of the world's highest dams forms the Nurek Reservoir. Numerous factories also were built along the Vakhsh to draw upon its waters and potential for electric power generation.[3] Due to the uneven distribution of water throughout Central Asia, the Soviets created a system in which Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan provided water to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in summer, and these three countries provided oil and gas to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan during winter. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, this system fell apart and a new resource-sharing plan has yet to be put in place. According to research conducted by the International Crisis Group, this is due to corruption and lack of political will; failure to solve this issue could lead to irreversible regional destabilization.[4]
The two most important rivers in northern Tajikistan are the Syr Darya and the Zeravshan (Zarafshan). The former, the second longest river in Central Asia with a total length of 2,400 kilometres (1,500mi), stretches 195 kilometres (121mi) across the Fergana Valley in far-northern Tajikistan. The Zeravshan River, with a total length of 781 kilometres (485mi), runs for 316 kilometres (196mi) through the north-center of Tajikistan. Tajikistan's rivers reach high-water levels twice a year: in the spring, fed by the rainy season and melting mountain snow, and in the summer, fed by melting glaciers. The summer freshets are the more useful for irrigation, especially in the Fergana Valley and the valleys of southeastern Tajikistan. Most of Tajikistan's lakes are of glacial origin and are located in the Pamir region in the eastern half of the country. The largest, the Karakul (Qarokul) Lake, is a salt lake devoid of life, lying at an elevation of 4,200 metres (13,800ft).[3] Tajikistan's second largest water body is the Kayrakum Reservoir, a 44km (27mi) long artificial lake in the heart of the Fergana Valley, not far from the city of Khujand in Sughd Province.[5] The lake is fed by the Syr Darya. Another well-known natural lake of glacial origin is Iskanderkul. It is smaller than the Kayrakum Reservoir and lies in the Fann Mountains in western Tajikistan.
Tajikistan's climate is continental, subtropical, and semiarid, with some desert areas. The climate changes drastically according to elevation, however. The Fergana Valley and other lowlands are shielded by mountains from Arctic air masses, but temperatures in that region still drop below freezing for more than 100 days a year. In the subtropical southwestern lowlands, which have the highest average temperatures, the climate is arid, although some sections now are irrigated for farming. At Tajikistan's lower elevations, the average temperature range is 23 to 30°C (73.4 to 86.0°F) in July and −1 to 3°C (30.2 to 37.4°F) in January. In the eastern Pamirs, the average July temperature is 5 to 10°C (41 to 50°F), and the average January temperature is −15 to −20°C (5 to −4°F).[6]
Tajikistan is the wettest of the Central Asian republics,[7] with the average annual precipitation for the Kafernigan and Vakhsh valleys in the south being around 500 to 600mm (19.7 to 23.6in), and up to 1,500mm (59.1in) in the mountains[citation needed]. At the Fedchenko Glacier, as much as 223.6cm (88.0in) of snow falls each year[citation needed]. Only in the northern Fergana Valley and in the rain shadow areas of the eastern Pamirs is precipitation as low as in other parts of Central Asia: in the eastern Pamirs less than 100mm (3.94in) falls per year[citation needed]. Most precipitation occurs in the winter and spring.
Climate data for Dushanbe (1991–2020, extremes 1926–present)
Source 2: climatebase.ru (humidity),[13] Meteo Climat (record highs and lows)[14]
Environmental problems
Most of Tajikistan's environmental problems are associated with the agricultural policies imposed on the country during the Soviet period. By 1991 heavy use of mineral fertilizers and agricultural chemicals was a major cause of pollution in the republic. Among those chemicals were DDT, banned by international convention, and several defoliants and herbicides. In addition to the damage they have done to the air, land, and water, the chemicals have contaminated the cottonseeds whose oil is used widely for cooking. Cotton farmers and their families are at particular risk from the overuse of agricultural chemicals, both from direct physical contact in the field and from the use of the branches of cotton plants at home for fuel. All of these toxic sources are believed to contribute to a high incidence of maternal and child mortality and birth defects. In 1994 the infant mortality rate was 43.2 per 1,000 births, the second highest rate among former Soviet republics. The rate in 1990 had been 40.0 infant deaths per 1,000 births.[2]
Cotton requires particularly intense irrigation. In Tajikistan's cotton-growing regions, farms were established in large, semiarid tracts and in tracts reclaimed from the desert, but cotton's growing season is summer, when the region receives virtually no rainfall. The 50 percent increase in cotton cultivation mandated by Soviet and post-Soviet agricultural planners between 1964 and 1994 consequently overtaxed the regional water supply. Poorly designed irrigation networks led to massive runoff, which increased soil salinity and carried toxic agricultural chemicals downstream to other fields, the Aral Sea, and populated areas of the region.[2]
By the 1980s, nearly 90 percent of water use in Central Asia was for agriculture. Of that quantity, nearly 75 percent came from the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, the chief tributaries of the Aral Sea on the Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan border to the northwest of Tajikistan. As the desiccation of the Aral Sea came to international attention in the 1980s, water-use policy became a contentious issue between Soviet republics such as Tajikistan, where the main rivers rise, and those farther downstream, including Uzbekistan. By the end of the Soviet era, the central government had relinquished central control of water-use policy for Central Asia, but the republics had not agreed on an allocation policy.[2]
Industry also causes pollution problems. A major offender is the production of nonferrous metals. One of Tajikistan's leading industrial sites, the aluminum plant at Tursunzoda (formerly known as Regar), west of Dushanbe near the border with Uzbekistan, generates large amounts of toxic waste gases that have been blamed for a sharp increase in the number of birth defects among people who live within range of its emissions.[2]
In 1992 the Supreme Soviet of Tajikistan established a Ministry of Environmental Protection. However, the enforcement activity of the ministry was limited severely by the political upheavals that plagued Tajikistan in its first years of independence. The only registered private environmental group in Tajikistan in the early 1990s was a chapter of the Social-Ecological Alliance, the largest informal environmental association in the former Soviet Union. The Tajik branch's main functions have been to conduct environmental research and to organize protests against the Roghun Hydroelectric Plant project.[2]
Natural hazards:Earthquakes are of varying degrees and are frequent. Flooding and landslides sometimes occur during the annual Spring thaw.[15]
Environment - current issues: inadequate sanitation facilities; increasing levels of soil salinity; industrial pollution; excessive pesticides; part of the basin of the shrinking Aral Sea suffers from severe overutilization of available water for irrigation and associated pollution.
Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Environmental Modification, Ozone Layer Protection
Tajikistan is home to some of the highest mountains in the world, including the Pamir and Alay ranges. 93% of Tajikistan is mountainous with altitudes ranging from 300m (980ft) to almost 7,500m (24,600ft), and nearly 50% of Tajikistan's territory is above 3,000m (9,800ft).
The massive mountain ranges are cut by hundreds of canyons and gorges at the bottom of which run streams that flow into larger river valleys where the majority of the country's population lives and works. The Pamirs in particular are heavily glaciated, and Tajikistan is home to the largest non-polar glacier in the world, the Fedchenko Glacier.
The principal rivers of Central Asia, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, both flow through Tajikistan, fed by melting snow and glaciers from the mountains of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. There are over 900 rivers in Tajikistan longer than 10 kilometres (6.2mi).
The Amu Darya ,(Persian: آمو دریا) also shortened to Amu and historically known as the Oxus, is a major river in Central Asia, which flows through Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Rising in the Pamir Mountains, north of the Hindu Kush, the Amu Darya is formed by the confluence of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, in the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve on the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and flows from there north-westwards into the southern remnants of the Aral Sea. In its upper course, the river forms part of Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. In ancient history, the river was regarded as the boundary of Greater Iran with Turan, which roughly corresponded to present-day Central Asia. The Amu Darya has a flow of about 70 cubic kilometres per year on average.
Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked nation in Central Asia, with an area of 199,951 km². The national territory extends about 900 km (560 mi) from east to west and 410 km (250 mi) from north to south.
Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea to the west, Iran and Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the north-east, and Kazakhstan to the north-west. It is the southernmost republic of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the loose federation created at the end of 1991 by most of the Post-Soviet states.
Uzbekistan is a country in Central Asia, located north of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. With an area of approximately 447,000 square kilometers, Uzbekistan stretches 1,425 km (885 mi) from west to east and 930 km (580 mi) from north to south. It borders Turkmenistan to the southwest, Kazakhstan to the north and Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to the south and east. Uzbekistan also has four small exclaves in Turkmenistan.
The Syr DaryaSEER-DAR-yə, historically known as the Jaxartes, is a river in Central Asia. The name, which is Persian, literally means Syr Sea or Syr River. It originates in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan and flows for 2,256.25 kilometres (1,401.97 mi) west and north-west through Uzbekistan, Sughd province of Tajikistan, and southern Kazakhstan to the northern remnants of the Aral Sea. It is the northern and eastern of the two main rivers in the endorheic basin of the Aral Sea, the other being the Amu Darya.
Fergana Valley is a valley in Central Asia, lying mostly in eastern Uzbekistan, extending into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan.
The Pamir Mountains are a range of mountains between Central Asia and South Asia. They are located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the world's highest mountains.
The Alay or Alai Range is a mountain range that extends from the Tien Shan mountain range in Kyrgyzstan west into Tajikistan. It is part of the Pamir-Alay mountain system. The range runs approximately east to west. Its highest summit is Pik Tandykul, reaching 5544 m. It forms the southern border of the Fergana Valley, and in the south it falls steeply to the Alay Valley. The southern slopes of the range drain into the Kyzylsuu or Vakhsh River, a tributary of the Amu Darya. The streams that drain the northern slopes of the range are tributaries of the Syr Darya, and empty into the Fergana Valley to the north of the range. Pik Skobeleva, 5,051 metres (16,572 ft), is also a well-known summit. European route E007: Tashkent – Kokand – Andijan – Osh – Irkeshtam crosses the range by the Taldyk Pass. The range is also traversed by Pamir highway.
Osh is the second-largest city in Kyrgyzstan, located in the Fergana Valley in the south of the country. It is often referred to as the "capital of the south". It is the oldest city in the country and has served as the administrative center of Osh Region since 1939. The city has an ethnically mixed population of 322,164 in 2021, comprising Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Koreans, and other smaller ethnic groups.
The Trans-Alay or Trans-Alai Range is the northernmost range of the Pamir Mountain System. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the range has been divided between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The Vakhsh, also known as the Surkhob in north-central Tajikistan and as the Kyzyl-Suu in Kyrgyzstan, is a Central Asian river and one of the main rivers of Tajikistan. It is a tributary of the Amu Darya river.
The M41, known informally and more commonly as the Pamir Highway, is a road traversing the Pamir Mountains through Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan with a length of over 1,200 km. It is the only continuous route through the difficult terrain of the mountains and is the main supply route to Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. The route has been in use for millennia, as there are a limited number of viable routes through the high Pamir Mountains. The road formed one link of the ancient Silk Road trade route. M41 is the Soviet road number, but it only remains as an official designation in post-Soviet Uzbekistan, as confirmed by official decree. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have passed decrees abolishing Soviet numbering of highways and assigning their own national numbering.
The Vanch-Yakh Glacier is a large glacier in the Yazgulem Range, Pamir Mountains, of north-central Gorno-Badakhshan province, Tajikistan. The glacier is long and narrow, currently extending for 77 kilometres (48 mi) and covering over 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi). It is the longest glacier in the world outside of the polar regions. The maximum thickness of the glacier is 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), and the volume of the glacier and its dozens of tributaries is estimated at 144 cubic kilometres (35 cu mi)—about a third of the volume of Lake Erie.
Tajikistan is a highly agrarian country, with its rural population at more than 70% and agriculture accounting for 60% of employment and around 20% of GDP in 2020. As is typical of economies dependent on agriculture, Tajikistan has a low income per capita: Soviet Tajikistan was the poorest republic with a staggering 45% of its population in the lowest income “septile”. In 2006 Tajikistan still had the lowest income per capita among the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries: $1,410 compared with nearly $12,000 for Russia. The low income and the high agrarian profile justify and drive the efforts for agricultural reform since 1991 in the hope of improving the population's well-being.
The Kofarnihon is one of the major tributaries of the Amu Darya in Tajikistan. The river is 387 kilometres (240 mi) long and has a basin area of 11,600 square kilometres (4,500 sq mi). It rises on the southern slopes of Gissar Range in Vahdat district, formerly Kofarnihon district, and flows in the general south-western direction past the cities of Vahdat and Dushanbe, where it turns south and runs through Khatlon Province toward the border with Afghanistan. It falls into Amudarya some 40 km west of the confluence point of Vakhsh and Panj rivers. The Kofarnihon is an important source of drinking water, and yet it is highly polluted by irrigation runoff and inadequately cleaned recycled water around the cities of Dushanbe and Vahdat.
The Zarafshan Range, formerly the Zeravshan Range, is a mountain range in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, part of the Pamir-Alay mountains. Almost all of the range belongs to the drainage basins of the Zarafshan River.
The Pamir-Alay is a mountain system in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, encompassing four main mountain ranges extending west from the Tian Shan Mountains, and located north of the main range of Pamir. They are variously considered part of the Tian Shan, of the Pamir, or a separate mountain system. The term "Pamiro-Alay" is also used to refer to the mountain region encompassing the Pamir, the Pamir-Alay proper and the Tajik Depression.
High-mountain Asia (HMA) is a high-elevation geographic region in central-south Asia that includes numerous cordillera and highland systems around the Tibetan Plateau, encompassing regions of East, Southeast, South and Central Asia. The region was orogenically formed by the continental collision of the Indian Plate into the Eurasian Plate.
The Central Asian riparian woodlands ecoregion is spread out across the deserts and plains of central Asia between the Aral Sea and the mountains 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) to the east. The long narrow components of the ecoregion follow the large rivers fed by snowmelt, and provide critical habitat for migratory birds as they travel through the arid region. The vegetation is referred to as tugai, characterized by low tangles of trees and brush along the edges of the rivers and associated wetlands, and fed by groundwater instead of precipitation.
The Isfara is a river of the Syr Darya basin in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In its upper course, it is called Ak-Suu, in its middle course Karavshin.
References
1 2 "Geography". Library of Congress Country Studies. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 31 July 2015. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
↑ "Klimatafel von Duschanbe / Tadschikistan"(PDF). Baseline climate means (1961–1990) from stations all over the world (in German). Deutscher Wetterdienst. Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 November 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
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