The Amu Darya, also called the Amu, the Amo, and historically 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.
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.
The Aral Sea was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south, which began shrinking in the 1960s and largely dried up by the 2010s. It was in the Aktobe and Kyzylorda regions of Kazakhstan and the Karakalpakstan autonomous region of Uzbekistan. The name roughly translates from Mongolic and Turkic languages to "Sea of Islands", a reference to the large number of islands that once dotted its waters. The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
The Syr Darya, 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.
The Karakum Desert, also spelled Kara-Kum and Gara-Gum, is a desert in Central Asia. The name refers to the shale-rich sand beneath the surface. It occupies about 70 percent, or roughly 350,000 km2 (140,000 sq mi), of Turkmenistan.
The Massagetae or Massageteans, also known as Sakā tigraxaudā or Orthocorybantians, were an ancient Eastern Iranian Saka people who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia and were part of the wider Scythian cultures. The Massagetae rose to power in the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, when they started a series of events with wide-reaching consequences by expelling the Scythians out of Central Asia and into the Caucasian and Pontic Steppes. The Massagetae are most famous for their queen Tomyris's alleged defeating and killing of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
The Caspian tiger was a Panthera tigris tigris population native to eastern Turkey, northern Iran, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus around the Caspian Sea, Central Asia to northern Afghanistan and the Xinjiang region in western China. Until the Middle Ages, it was also present in southern Russia. It inhabited sparse forests and riverine corridors in this region until the 1970s. This population was regarded as a distinct subspecies and assessed as extinct in 2003.
Konye-Urgench, also known as Old Urgench or Urganj, is a city of about 30,000 inhabitants in north Turkmenistan, just south from its border with Uzbekistan. It is the site of the ancient town of Gurgānj, which contains the ruins of the capital of Khwarazm. Its inhabitants deserted the town in the early eighteenth century in order to develop a new settlement, and Konye-Urgench has remained undisturbed ever since. In 2005, the ruins of Old Urgench were inscribed on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites.
The Karakum Canal in Turkmenistan is one of the largest irrigation and water supply canals in the world. Started in 1954, and completed in 1988, it is navigable over much of its 1,375-kilometre (854 mi) length, and carries 13 cubic kilometres (3.1 cu mi) of water annually from the Amu-Darya River across the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan. The canal opened up huge new tracts of land to agriculture, especially to cotton monoculture heavily promoted by the Soviet Union, and supplying Ashgabat with a major source of water. The canal is also a major factor leading to the Aral Sea environmental disaster. The Soviet regime planned to at some time extend the canal to the Caspian Sea.
The Sarygamysh Lake, also Sarykamysh or Sary-Kamysh, is a lake in Central Asia. It is about midway between the Caspian Sea and the (former) Aral Sea. It is the largest lake in Turkmenistan, in which three quarters of the entire lake's area is located. The Sarykamysh basin and the Sarykamysh delta of the Amu Darya river are physical and geographical nature regions of the Dashoguz Region of Turkmenistan.
The Aydar Lake is part of the man-made Aydar-Arnasay system of lakes, which covers 4,000 square kilometres (1,500 mi2). This has 3 brackish water lakes, deep basins of the south-eastern Kyzyl Kum. The lakes are expansive reservoirs of Soviet planning.
Oxiana is the region surrounding the Amu Darya River which flows along Afghanistan's northern border separating it from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan before turning northwest into Turkmenistan to the Aral Sea. In ancient times, the river was known as the Oxus in Greek. The area was known to the Greeks as Bactria from the name of its capital and central city of Bactra.
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake and sometimes referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia, south of the fertile plains of Southern Russia in Eastern Europe, and north of the mountainous Iranian Plateau. It covers a surface area of 371,000 km2 (143,000 sq mi), an area approximately equal to that of Japan, with a volume of 78,200 km3 (19,000 cu mi). It has a salinity of approximately 1.2%, about a third of the salinity of average seawater. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the southwest, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southeast.
The Main Turkmen Canal was a large-scale irrigation project in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. The canal was intended to transport water from the Amu Darya river to Krasnovodsk, a city in Turkmenistan on the coast of the Caspian Sea. The canal was going to use the course of the ancient dry Uzboy River bed.
The Tuyamuyun Hydro Complex (THC) is a system of four interconnected reservoirs and a series of canals on the lower Amu Darya River, bordering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Its primary purpose is to provide water for irrigation in Xorazm, Karakalpakstan and Daşoguz regions of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and as far north as Kazakhstan. The complex is located about 74 km (46 mi) southeast of Urgench in Xorazm Region, Uzbekistan and about 2 km (1.2 mi) north of Gazojak in Lebap Region, Turkmenistan. It was constructed between 1969 and 1983. Aside from irrigation, the complex also provides water for industrial and municipal uses. A 150 MW power station on the main dam contains six 25 MW hydroelectric turbine-generators.
In the Russo-Khivan War of 1873, Russia conquered the Khanate of Khiva, and it became a Russian protectorate.
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 Gurgānj Dam was a major water engineering project of medieval-era Central Asia. The dam was constructed on the Amu Darya (Oxus) river, near what is now called Konye-Urgench in northern Turkmenistan. It was destroyed in 1221 by the troops of Genghis Khan and began to flow into Sarygamysh Lake.
The Transcaspian Canal was a proposed canal to divert the Amu Darya River from the Aral Sea and into the Caspian Sea. It was first proposed by Tsarist engineers and later considered by Soviet officials. Proponents argued that the project would return the Amu Darya into its supposed old bed.
