Как правильно пишется река амударья

Амударья

Полезное

Запрос «Оксус» перенаправляется сюда; о древнем городе см. Оксус (город).

Запрос «Джейхун» перенаправляется сюда; см. также другие значения.

Амударья
тадж. Амударё, пушту د آمو سيند, узб. Amudaryo, туркм. Amyderýa, каракалп. Әмиўдәрья
Мост через Амударью между Таджикистаном и Афганистаном
Характеристика
Длина	1415 км
Бассейн	309 000 км²
Расход воды	около 2000 м³/с (близ города Керки)
Водоток
Исток	слияние рек: Пяндж и Вахш
• Местоположение	Памирский горный край
• Координаты	37°06′22″ с. ш. 68°18′23″ в. д.HGЯO
Устье	Большое Аральское море
• Координаты	44°06′30″ с. ш. 59°40′52″ в. д.HGЯO
Расположение
Афганистан	Кундуз, Балх, Джаузджан
Таджикистан	Хатлонская область
Узбекистан	Сурхандарьинская область, Бухарская область, Хорезмская область,  Республика Каракалпакстан
Туркмения	Лебапский велаят, Дашогузский велаят
исток устье
Медиафайлы на Викискладе

Амударья́^[1] (устар. Аму-Дарья) (пушту د آمو سيند, тадж. Амударё, Омударё, Дарёи Ому, туркм. Amyderýa, узб. Amudaryo, каракалп. Әмиўдәрья, от перс. آمو‎ Аму — названия исторического города Амуль и перс. دریا‎ дарья — «река», «море»; др.-греч. Ὦξος, лат. Oxus, араб. جيحون‎) — вторая по длине (после Сырдарьи) и крупнейшая по полноводности река в Средней Азии.

Длина 1415 км (2620 км — от истока Пянджа с рекой Вахандарья). Площадь бассейна (выше города Керки, 1045 км от устья) 309 тысяч км² (без бассейнов рек Зеравшан и Кашкадарья, сток которых практически не поступает в Амударью), сток воды осуществляется с 227 тыс. км²^[1].

Образуется слиянием рек Пяндж и Вахш, впадает в Аральское море, образуя дельту. В среднем течении в Амударью впадают три крупных правых притока (Кафирниган, Сурхандарья, Шерабад) и один левый приток (Кундуз). Далее до Аральского моря она не получает ни одного притока.

Питание реки в основном составляют талые снеговые и ледниковые воды, поэтому максимальные расходы наблюдаются летом, а наименьшие — в январе — феврале. Протекая по равнине, от Керки до Нукуса, Амударья теряет большую часть своего стока на испарение, инфильтрацию и орошение. По мутности Амударья занимает первое место в Центральной Азии и одно из первых мест в мире. Основной сток Амударьи формируется на территории Таджикистана (80 %) и частично в Северном Афганистане. Затем река протекает вдоль границы Афганистана с Узбекистаном, пересекает Туркмению, далее течет вдоль туркмено-узбекской границы, вновь возвращается в Узбекистан и впадает в Аральское море. В настоящее время воды реки доходят до Аральского моря лишь в период наиболее сильных весенних паводков, так как забираются на орошение.

Средний расход воды у города Керки около 2000 м³/с. Вода Амударьи используется для орошения. Крупнейшие каналы: Каракумский, Аму-Бухарский и другие. В начале 1950-х годов планировалось также построить Главный Туркменский канал, который начинался бы у Нукуса и использовал русло Узбоя, но план не был осуществлён.

Флора и фауна

Долина и дельта Амударьи характеризуется тугайным ландшафтом. В настоящее время в тугаях низовьев Амударьи насчитывается 61 вид тугайных растений. Из них к основной группе растений тугаев относятся туранга, ива (5 видов), лох (1 вид), гребенщик, чингиль, ломонос, ластовень, солодка. Кустарниковая зона тугаев представлена в основном видами, связанными с постоянным грунтовым увлажнением и процессом засоления. Это — гребенщик, ажирык, лебеда, парнолистник, кермек, акбаш, карабарак и различные солянки.

В водах Амударьи водятся лысач, жерех, аральский усач, сом, лещ, чехонь, остролучка, белый амур, толстолобик^[2]

В Бадай-тугае и в других тугаях обычен шакал, придерживается труднопроходимых участков. Среди кустарниковых зарослей обитает барсук, изредка встречаются камышовый кот и лиса. Насекомоядные в тугаях представлены ушастым ежом и пегим путораком. Из грызунов довольно многочисленны заяц-толай и домовая мышь; обычны пластинчатозубая крыса, полуденная песчанка и др. Из копытных в тугае повсеместно обитает кабан и в Бадай-тугае — бухарский олень. Обычен в тугае пустынный гологлаз и узорчатый полоз. По окраинам тугая встречаются стрела-змея, степная агама и среднеазиатская черепаха. В дельте Амударьи и у озёр встречается водяной уж.

История

В древности река носила несколько названий. В Авесте, священной книге зороастрийцев, она упоминается под именами «Вахш» (культовый термин, обозначавший богиню воды и плодородия), «Ардви» (река богини Ардви Суры Анахиты)^[3]. Греческие историки Геродот, Ксенофонт, Полибий, Страбон, Птолемей в своих трудах называли её «Аракс» (объяснить это можно тем, что древние географы перенесли более созвучное им название кавказской реки «Аракс» с малоизвестного «Аранха»). В частности, Геродот писал об Амударье, что она разделяется 360 каналов и 40 устьями теряется в болотах, и только одним из рукавов, который протекает по открытой местности, впадает в Каспийское море. Впоследствии, основываясь на этих сведениях, исследователи пытались доказать, что сухое русло Узбоя является этим каспийским протоком. Однако исследования показывают, что западная ветвь Амударьи доходила лишь до озера Сарыкамыш, а сведения Геродота основывались на древних устных преданиях предысторического периода^[4].

Во время похода Александра Македонского греки познакомились с ещё одним местным названием реки Амударья, в греческой интерпретации звучавшим как «Оксос». Окс, по представлениям греков, впадал в Гирканское море и был необычайно широк (6 стадий)^[5].

В словаре Махмуда Кашгари «Диван лугат ат-турк» ögüz означает «всякая крупная река, вроде Джейхуна (АмуДарьи) и Евфрата», он также добавляет, что в стране тюрков много рек, называемых этим словом^[6].

В трудах средневековых хорезмийских авторов река носит название «Окуз»^[7], этим же словом назывались и другие крупные реки^[8]. На это также указывает известный советский археолог и историк, академик С. П. Толстов:

«Нам уже пришлось выдвинуть положение, что имя огузов, под которым выступают туркмены в раннесредневековых источниках, представляет собой закономерный вариант древнего имени Аму-Дарьи — Окс, в форме Окуз…»^[9]

На некоторых картах XVI—XVII веков, название Амударьи также указано как «Огуз».^[10] Из всего этого следует, что название реке Амударья давалось отдельными народами, обитавшими на разных её частях^[11].

Страбон сообщает, что Окс является границей Бактрии и Согдианы, а также впадает в Гирканское море^[12].

Имеются кушанские монеты с надписью «Окшо» и изображением водного четверорукого божества^[13]

Хозяйственное значение

В низовьях рыболовство. Регулярное судоходство от Туркменабада. Вблизи Амударьи находятся города Ургенч, Нукус, Термез, а также Амударьинский заповедник. Воды Амударьи полностью разбираются для орошения. Самый большой в мире канал — Каракумский — берёт воду из Амударьи и отбирает около 45 % её воды. Также от Амударьи отходит Аму-Бухарский канал, который орошает территорию Узбекистана. Вдоль этих каналов и самой Амударьи тянутся огромные поля хлопка и пшеницы (в Туркмении). На реке и её притоках построено множество плотин (особенно в Таджикистане) для выработки электроэнергии, которую экспортирует Таджикистан. На орошаемых площадях Узбекистан собирает около 10-20 % мирового урожая хлопка. Но из-за орошения большую часть года воды Амударьи не доходят до Аральского моря, что привело к высыханию последнего.

Река является единственным местом обитания эндемичных амударьинских лопатоносов, находящихся на грани исчезновения.

Мосты через Амударью

Туркменистан

• Железнодорожный мост Туркменабат-Фарап — железнодорожный мост через Амударью на территории Лебапского велаята Туркменистана. Введен в строй в марте 2017 года. Протяжённость моста составляет 1750 м.^[14]
• Мост Атамурат-Керкичи — железнодорожный и автомобильный мосты в Лебапском велаяте, построенные через Амударью в 2009 и 2013 годах.^[15][16]

Заповедники на Амударье

Туркменистан

• Амударьинский заповедник. Создан в 1982 году, расположен на территории Дарганатынского, Дяневского и Фарапского этрапах (районах) Лебапского велаята Туркменистана. Современная площадь Амударьинского заповедника — 49,5 тысяч гектаров, включает в себя часть акватории Амударьи, тугаи и участок пустыни Кызылкум.^[17]

См. также

• Теснина Дульдульатлаган
• Трубопроводный висячий мост через Амударью

Примечания

Литература

• Аму // Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона : в 86 т. (82 т. и 4 доп.). — СПб., 1890—1907.
• Водные проблемы возникают из-за «несоответствия интересов верховий и низовий». www.ferghana.ru. Дата обращения: 27 июля 2019. Архивировано из оригинала 29 апреля 2009 года. (статья о современном водном балансе бассейна Амударьи)
• Feruza Jumaniyozova — Derya (AZE) на YouTube
• Фауна, население и экология птиц водоемов низовьев реки Амударьи, Ташкент, 1995. earthpapers.net. Дата обращения: 27 июля 2019.

Эта страница в последний раз была отредактирована 28 февраля 2023 в 20:47.

Как только страница обновилась в Википедии она обновляется в Вики 2.
Обычно почти сразу, изредка в течении часа.

Запрос «Оксус» перенаправляется сюда; о древнем городе см. Оксус (город).

Запрос «Джейхун» перенаправляется сюда; см. также другие значения.

Амударья́^[1] (устар. Аму-Дарья) (пушту د آمو سيند, тадж. Амударё, туркм. Amyderýa, узб. Amudaryo, каракалп. Әмиўдәрья, от перс. آمو‎ Аму — названия исторического города Амуль и перс. دریا‎ дарья — «река», «море»; др.-греч. Ὦξος, лат. Oxus, араб. جيحون‎) — вторая по длине и крупнейшая по полноводности река в Средней Азии.

Амударья
пушту د آمو سيند, тадж. Амударё, узб. Amudaryo, каракалп. Әмиўдәрья, туркм. Amyderýa
Мост через Амударью между Таджикистаном и Афганистаном
Характеристика
Длина	1415 км
Бассейн	309 000 км²
Расход воды	около 2000 м³/с (близ города Керки)
Водоток
Исток	слияние рек: Пяндж и Вахш
• Местоположение	Памирский горный край
• Координаты	37°06′22″ с. ш. 68°18′23″ в. д.HGЯO
Устье	Большое Аральское море
• Координаты	44°06′30″ с. ш. 59°40′52″ в. д.HGЯO
Расположение
Афганистан	Кундуз, Балх, Джаузджан
Таджикистан	Хатлонская область
Узбекистан	Сурхандарьинская область, Бухарская область, Хорезмская область, Республика Каракалпакстан
Туркмения	Лебапский велаят, Дашогузский велаят
исток устье
Медиафайлы на Викискладе

Дельта Амударьи из космоса, ноябрь 1994 г.

Понтонный мост через Амударью возле Ургенча

Длина 1415 км (2620 км — от истока Пянджа с рекой Вахандарья). Площадь бассейна (выше города Керки, 1045 км от устья) 309 тысяч км² (без бассейнов рек Зеравшан и Кашкадарья, сток которых практически не поступает в Амударью), сток воды осуществляется с 227 тыс. км²^[1].

Образуется слиянием рек Пяндж и Вахш, впадает в Аральское море, образуя дельту. В среднем течении в Амударью впадают три крупных правых притока (Кафирниган, Сурхандарья, Шерабад) и один левый приток (Кундуз). Далее до Аральского моря она не получает ни одного притока.

Питание реки в основном составляют талые снеговые и ледниковые воды, поэтому максимальные расходы наблюдаются летом, а наименьшие — в январе — феврале. Протекая по равнине, от Керки до Нукуса, Амударья теряет большую часть своего стока на испарение, инфильтрацию и орошение. По мутности Амударья занимает первое место в Центральной Азии и одно из первых мест в мире. Основной сток Амударьи формируется на территории Таджикистана (80 %) и частично в Северном Афганистане. Затем река протекает вдоль границы Афганистана с Узбекистаном, пересекает Туркмению и вновь возвращается в Узбекистан и впадает в Аральское море. В настоящее время воды реки доходят до Аральского моря лишь в период наиболее сильных весенних паводков, так как забираются на орошение.

Средний расход воды у города Керки около 2000 м³/с. Вода Амударьи используется для орошения. Крупнейшие каналы: Каракумский, Аму-Бухарский и другие. В начале 1950-х годов планировалось также построить Главный Туркменский канал, который начинался бы у Нукуса и использовал русло Узбоя, но план не был осуществлён.

Флора и фаунаПравить

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ЛитератураПравить

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the river. For the town, see Amu Dar’ya (town).

Amu Darya Oxus, Wehrōd, də Āmu Sind, Amu River
Looking at the Amu Darya from Turkmenistan
Map of area around the Aral Sea. Aral Sea boundaries are c. 2008. The Amu Darya drainage basin is in orange, and the Syr Darya basin in yellow.
Etymology	Named for the city of Āmul (now Türkmenabat)
Native name	Амударё (Uzbek) Амударё (Amudaryo) (Tajik) Амударья (Amudar’ya) (Russian) Amu Darýa (Turkmen) د امو دره (Pashto) امو دريا (Dari)
Location
Countries	Afghanistan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan
Region	Central Asia
Physical characteristics
Source	Pamir River/Panj River
• location	Lake Zorkul, Pamir Mountains, Afghanistan
• coordinates	37°27′04″N 73°34′21″E / 37.45111°N 73.57250°E
• elevation	4,130 m (13,550 ft)
2nd source	Kyzylsu River/Vakhsh River
• location	Alay Valley, Pamir Mountains, Kyrgyzstan
• coordinates	39°13′27″N 72°55′26″E / 39.22417°N 72.92389°E
• elevation	4,525 m (14,846 ft)
Source confluence	Kerki
• location	Tajikistan
• coordinates	37°06′35″N 68°18′44″E / 37.10972°N 68.31222°E
• elevation	326 m (1,070 ft)
Mouth	Aral Sea
• location	Amudarya Delta, Uzbekistan
• coordinates	44°06′30″N 59°40′52″E / 44.10833°N 59.68111°ECoordinates: 44°06′30″N 59°40′52″E / 44.10833°N 59.68111°E
• elevation	28 m (92 ft)
Length	2,400 km (1,500 mi)
Basin size	534,739 km2 (206,464 sq mi)
Discharge
• average	2,525 m3/s (89,200 cu ft/s)[1]
• minimum	420 m3/s (15,000 cu ft/s)
• maximum	5,900 m3/s (210,000 cu ft/s)
Basin features
Tributaries
• left	Panj River
• right	Vakhsh River, Surkhan Darya, Sherabad River, Zeravshan River

The Amu Darya^[a] (also called the Amu, Amo River, and historically known by its Latin name Oxus or Greek Ὦξος)^[2] is a major river in Central Asia 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.^[3] The Amu Darya has a flow of about 70 cubic kilometres per year on average.^[4]

Names[edit]

In classical antiquity, the river was known as the Ōxus in Latin and Ὦξος (Ôxos) in Greek — a clear derivative of Vakhsh, the name of the largest tributary of the river.^[5] In Vedic Sanskrit, the river is also referred to as Vakṣu (वक्षु). The Brahmanda Purana refers to the river as Chaksu which means an eye.^{[citation needed]} The Avestan texts too refer to the River as Yakhsha/Vakhsha (and Yakhsha Arta («upper Yakhsha») referring to the Jaxartes/Syr Darya twin river to Amu Darya). In Middle Persian sources of the Sasanian period the river is known as Wehrōd^[3] (lit. ‘good river’).

The name Amu is said to have come from the medieval city of Āmul, (later, Chahar Joy/Charjunow, and now known as Türkmenabat), in modern Turkmenistan, with Darya being the Persian word for «lake». Medieval Arabic and Islamic sources call the river Jayhoun (Arabic: جَـيْـحُـوْن, romanized: Jayḥūn; also Jaihun, Jayhoon, or Dzhaykhun) which is derived from Gihon, the biblical name for one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden.^[6][7] River Amu Darya passes through one of the world’s highest deserts.^[8]

As the river Gozan[edit]

Western travelers in the 19th century mentioned that one of the names by which the river was known in Afghanistan was Gozan, and that this name was used by Greek, Mongol, Chinese, Persian, Jewish, and Afghan historians. However, this name is no longer used.^[9]

«Hara (Bokhara) and to the river of Gozan (that is to say, the Amu, (called the Oxus by Europeans )) …»^[10]

«the Gozan River is the River Balkh, i.e. the Oxus or the Amu Darya …»^[11]

«… and were brought into Halah (modern day Balkh), and Habor (which is Pesh Habor or Peshawar), and Hara (which is Herat), and to the river Gozan (which is the Ammoo, also called Jehoon) …»^[12]

Description[edit]

The river’s total length is 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) and its drainage basin totals 534,739 square kilometres (206,464 sq mi) in area, providing a mean discharge of around 97.4 cubic kilometres (23.4 cu mi)^[1] of water per year. The river is navigable for over 1,450 kilometres (900 mi). All of the water comes from the high mountains in the south where annual precipitation can be over 1,000 mm (39 in). Even before large-scale irrigation began, high summer evaporation meant that not all of this discharge reached the Aral Sea – though there is some evidence the large Pamir glaciers provided enough meltwater for the Aral to overflow during the 13th and 14th centuries.

Since the end of the 19th century there have been four different claimants as the true source of the Oxus:

• The Pamir River, which emerges from Lake Zorkul (once also known as Lake Victoria) in the Pamir Mountains (ancient Mount Imeon), and flows west to Qila-e Panja, where it joins the Wakhan River to form the Panj River.
• The Sarhad or Little Pamir River flowing down the Little Pamir in the High Wakhan
• Lake Chamaktin, which discharges to the east into the Aksu River, which in turn becomes the Murghab and then Bartang rivers, and which eventually joins the Panj Oxus branch 350 kilometres downstream at Roshan Vomar in Tajikistan.
• An ice cave at the end of the Wakhjir valley, in the Wakhan Corridor, in the Pamir Mountains, near the border with Pakistan.

A glacier turns into the Wakhan River and joins the Pamir River about 50 kilometres (31 mi) downstream.^[13] Bill Colegrave’s expedition to Wakhan in 2007 found that both claimants 2 and 3 had the same source, the Chelab stream, which bifurcates on the watershed of the Little Pamir, half flowing into Lake Chamaktin and half into the parent stream of the Little Pamir/Sarhad River. Therefore, the Chelab stream may be properly considered the true source or parent stream of the Oxus.^[14] The Panj River forms the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It flows west to Ishkashim where it turns north and then north-west through the Pamirs passing the Tajikistan–Afghanistan Friendship Bridge. It subsequently forms the border of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for about 200 kilometres (120 mi), passing Termez and the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge. It delineates the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for another 100 kilometres (62 mi) before it flows into Turkmenistan at Atamurat. It flows across Turkmenistan south to north, passing Türkmenabat, and forms the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from Halkabat. It is then split by the Tuyamuyun Hydro Complex into many waterways that used to form the river delta joining the Aral Sea, passing Urgench, Daşoguz, and other cities, but it does not reach what is left of the sea any more and is lost in the desert. Use of water from the Amu Darya for irrigation has been a major contributing factor to the shrinking of the Aral Sea since the late 1950s. Historical records state that in different periods, the river flowed into the Aral Sea (from the south), into the Caspian Sea (from the east), or both, similar to the Syr Darya (Jaxartes, in Ancient Greek).

Watershed[edit]

The 534,769 square kilometres (206,475 sq mi) of the Amu Darya drainage basin include most of Tajikistan, the southwest corner of Kyrgyzstan, the northeast corner of Afghanistan, a narrow portion of eastern Turkmenistan and the western half of Uzbekistan. Part of the Amu Darya basin divide in Tajikistan forms that country’s border with China (in the east) and Pakistan (to the south). About 61% of the drainage lies within Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, while 39% is in Afghanistan.^[15]

The abundant water flowing in the Amu Darya comes almost entirely from glaciers in the Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan,^[16]
which, standing above the surrounding arid plain, collect atmospheric moisture which otherwise would probably escape somewhere else. Without its mountain water sources, the Amu Darya would not exist—because it rarely rains in the lowlands through which most of the river flows. Of the total drainage area only about 200,000 square kilometres (77,000 sq mi) actively contribute water to the river.^[17]
This is because many of the river’s major tributaries (especially the Zeravshan River) have been diverted, and much of the river’s drainage is arid. Throughout most of the steppe, the annual rainfall is about 300 millimetres (12 in).^[15][18]

History[edit]

The ancient Greeks called the Amu Darya the Oxus. In ancient times, the river was regarded as the boundary between Greater Iran and Ṫūrān (Persian: تُوران).^[3] The river’s drainage lies in the area between the former empires of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great, although they occurred at very different times. When the Mongols came to the area, they used the water of the Amu Darya to flood Konye-Urgench.^[19] One southern route of the Silk Road ran along part of the Amu Darya northwestward from Termez before going westwards to the Caspian Sea.

It is believed^{[weasel words]} that the Amu Darya’s course across the Karakum Desert has gone through several major shifts in the past few thousand years.^[20] Much of the time – most recently from the 13th century to the late 16th century – the Amu Darya emptied into both the Aral and the Caspian Seas, reaching the latter via a large distributary called the Uzboy River. The Uzboy splits off from the main channel just south of the river’s delta. Sometimes the flow through the two branches was more or less equal, but often most of the Amu Darya’s flow split to the west and flowed into the Caspian.

People began to settle along the lower Amu Darya and the Uzboy in the 5th century, establishing a thriving chain of agricultural lands, towns, and cities. In about AD 985, the massive Gurganj Dam at the bifurcation of the forks started to divert water to the Aral. Genghis Khan’s troops destroyed the dam in 1221, and the Amu Darya shifted to distributing its flow more or less equally between the main stem and the Uzboy.^[21] But in the 18th century, the river again turned north, flowing into the Aral Sea, a path it has taken since. Less and less water flowed down the Uzboy. When Russian explorer Bekovich-Cherkasski surveyed the region in 1720, the Amu Darya did not flow into the Caspian Sea anymore.^[22]

By the 1800s, the ethnographic makeup of the region was described by Peter Kropotkin as the communities of «the vassal Khanates of Maimene, Khulm, Kunduz, and even the Badakshan and Wahkran.»^[23] An Englishman, William Moorcroft, visited the Oxus around 1824 during the Great Game period.^[24] Another Englishman, a naval officer called John Wood, came with an expedition to find the source of the river in 1839. He found modern-day Lake Zorkul, called it Lake Victoria, and proclaimed he had found the source.^[25] Then, the French explorer and geographer Thibaut Viné collected a lot of information about this area during five expeditions between 1856 and 1862.

The question of finding a route between the Oxus valley and India has been of concern historically. A direct route crosses extremely high mountain passes in the Hindu Kush and isolated areas like Kafiristan. Some in Britain feared that the Empire of Russia, which at the time wielded great influence over the Oxus area, would overcome these obstacles and find a suitable route through which to invade British India – but this never came to pass.^[26] The area was taken over by Russia during the Russian conquest of Turkestan.

The Soviet Union became the ruling power in the early 1920s and expelled Mohammed Alim Khan. It later put down the Basmachi movement and killed Ibrahim Bek. A large refugee population of Central Asians, including Turkmen, Tajiks and Uzbeks, fled to northern Afghanistan.^[27] In the 1960s and 1970s the Soviets started using the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya to irrigate extensive cotton fields in the Central Asian plain. Before this time, water from the rivers was already being used for agriculture, but not on this massive scale. The Qaraqum Canal, Karshi Canal, and Bukhara Canal were among the larger of the irrigation diversions built. However, the Main Turkmen Canal, which would have diverted water along the dry Uzboy River bed into central Turkmenistan, was never built. The 1970s, in the course of the Soviet–Afghan War, Soviet forces used the valley to invade Afghanistan through Termez.^[28] The Soviet Union fell in the 1990s and Central Asia split up into the many smaller countries that lie within or partially within the Amu Darya basin.^[29]

During the Soviet era, a resource-sharing system was instated in which Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan shared water originating from the Amu and Syr Daryas with Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in summer. In return, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan received Kazakh, Turkmen, and Uzbek coal, gas, and electricity in winter. After the fall of the Soviet Union this system disintegrated and the Central Asian nations have failed to reinstate it. Inadequate infrastructure, poor water-management, and outdated irrigation methods all exacerbate the issue.^[30]

Siberian Tiger Introduction Project[edit]

The Caspian tiger used to occur along the river’s banks.^[31] After its extirpation, the Darya’s delta was suggested as a potential site for the introduction of its closest surviving relative, the Siberian tiger. A feasibility study was initiated to investigate if the area is suitable and if such an initiative would receive support from relevant decision makers. A viable tiger population of about 100 animals would require at least 5,000 km² (1,900 sq mi) of large tracts of contiguous habitat with rich prey populations. Such habitat is not available at this stage and cannot be provided in the short term. The proposed region is therefore unsuitable for the reintroduction, at least at this stage.^[32]

[edit]

In January 2023 the Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Company (aka CAPEIC) signed a $720 million four-year investment deal with the Taliban government of Afghanistan for extraction on its side of the Amu Darya basin. The deal will see a 15% royalty given to the Afghan government over the course of its 25-year term.^{[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]} The Chinese see this basin as the third-largest potential gas field in the world.^[41]

Literature[edit]

The clashing noise of battle reached the sky

The blood of the Bengalees flowed like the river Jaihun.

~ Mirza Nathan describing a battle between the Mughals and Musa Khan of Bengal (translated by M. I. Borah)

The Oxus river, and Arnold’s poem, fire the imaginations of the children who adventure with ponies over the moors of the West Country in the 1930s children’s book The Far-Distant Oxus. There were two sequels, Escape to Persia and Oxus in Summer.^[43]

Robert Byron’s 1937 travelogue, The Road to Oxiana, describes its author’s journey from the Levant through Persia to Afghanistan, with the Oxus as his stated goal.^{[citation needed]}

George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman at the Charge, (1973), places Flashman on the Amu Darya and the Aral Sea during the (fictitious) Russian advance on India during The Great Game period.^{[citation needed]}

But the majestic River floated on,

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,
Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste,
Under the solitary moon: — he flowed
Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè,
Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands begin
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles —
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,
A foiled circuitous wanderer: — till at last
The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

~ Matthew Arnold, Sohrab and Rustum

See also[edit]

• Oxus Treasure
• Vankhsh River
• Mount Imeon
• Sherabad River
• Surkhan Darya
• Transoxiana
• Zeravshan River
• Extreme points of Afghanistan
• List of rivers of Afghanistan

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Curzon, George Nathaniel. 1896. The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus. Royal Geographical Society, London. Reprint: Elibron Classics Series, Adamant Media Corporation. 2005. ISBN 1-4021-5983-8 (pbk; ISBN 1-4021-3090-2 (hbk).
• Gordon, T. E. 1876. The Roof of the World: Being the Narrative of a Journey over the high plateau of Tibet to the Russian Frontier and the Oxus sources on Pamir. Edinburgh. Edmonston and Douglas. Reprint by Ch’eng Wen Publishing Company. Taipei. 1971.
• Toynbee, Arnold J. 1961. Between Oxus and Jumna. London. Oxford University Press.
• Wood, John, 1872. A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus. With an essay on the Geography of the Valley of the Oxus by Colonel Henry Yule. London: John Murray.

External links[edit]

• Drying of the Aral Sea: Timelapse on YouTube
• The Amu Darya Basin Network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the river. For the town, see Amu Dar’ya (town).

Amu Darya Oxus, Wehrōd, də Āmu Sind, Amu River
Looking at the Amu Darya from Turkmenistan
Map of area around the Aral Sea. Aral Sea boundaries are c. 2008. The Amu Darya drainage basin is in orange, and the Syr Darya basin in yellow.
Etymology	Named for the city of Āmul (now Türkmenabat)
Native name	Амударё (Uzbek) Амударё (Amudaryo) (Tajik) Амударья (Amudar’ya) (Russian) Amu Darýa (Turkmen) د امو دره (Pashto) امو دريا (Dari)
Location
Countries	Afghanistan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan
Region	Central Asia
Physical characteristics
Source	Pamir River/Panj River
• location	Lake Zorkul, Pamir Mountains, Afghanistan
• coordinates	37°27′04″N 73°34′21″E / 37.45111°N 73.57250°E
• elevation	4,130 m (13,550 ft)
2nd source	Kyzylsu River/Vakhsh River
• location	Alay Valley, Pamir Mountains, Kyrgyzstan
• coordinates	39°13′27″N 72°55′26″E / 39.22417°N 72.92389°E
• elevation	4,525 m (14,846 ft)
Source confluence	Kerki
• location	Tajikistan
• coordinates	37°06′35″N 68°18′44″E / 37.10972°N 68.31222°E
• elevation	326 m (1,070 ft)
Mouth	Aral Sea
• location	Amudarya Delta, Uzbekistan
• coordinates	44°06′30″N 59°40′52″E / 44.10833°N 59.68111°ECoordinates: 44°06′30″N 59°40′52″E / 44.10833°N 59.68111°E
• elevation	28 m (92 ft)
Length	2,400 km (1,500 mi)
Basin size	534,739 km2 (206,464 sq mi)
Discharge
• average	2,525 m3/s (89,200 cu ft/s)[1]
• minimum	420 m3/s (15,000 cu ft/s)
• maximum	5,900 m3/s (210,000 cu ft/s)
Basin features
Tributaries
• left	Panj River
• right	Vakhsh River, Surkhan Darya, Sherabad River, Zeravshan River

The Amu Darya^[a] (also called the Amu, Amo River, and historically known by its Latin name Oxus or Greek Ὦξος)^[2] is a major river in Central Asia 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.^[3] The Amu Darya has a flow of about 70 cubic kilometres per year on average.^[4]

Names[edit]

In classical antiquity, the river was known as the Ōxus in Latin and Ὦξος (Ôxos) in Greek — a clear derivative of Vakhsh, the name of the largest tributary of the river.^[5] In Vedic Sanskrit, the river is also referred to as Vakṣu (वक्षु). The Brahmanda Purana refers to the river as Chaksu which means an eye.^{[citation needed]} The Avestan texts too refer to the River as Yakhsha/Vakhsha (and Yakhsha Arta («upper Yakhsha») referring to the Jaxartes/Syr Darya twin river to Amu Darya). In Middle Persian sources of the Sasanian period the river is known as Wehrōd^[3] (lit. ‘good river’).

The name Amu is said to have come from the medieval city of Āmul, (later, Chahar Joy/Charjunow, and now known as Türkmenabat), in modern Turkmenistan, with Darya being the Persian word for «lake». Medieval Arabic and Islamic sources call the river Jayhoun (Arabic: جَـيْـحُـوْن, romanized: Jayḥūn; also Jaihun, Jayhoon, or Dzhaykhun) which is derived from Gihon, the biblical name for one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden.^[6][7] River Amu Darya passes through one of the world’s highest deserts.^[8]

As the river Gozan[edit]

Western travelers in the 19th century mentioned that one of the names by which the river was known in Afghanistan was Gozan, and that this name was used by Greek, Mongol, Chinese, Persian, Jewish, and Afghan historians. However, this name is no longer used.^[9]

«Hara (Bokhara) and to the river of Gozan (that is to say, the Amu, (called the Oxus by Europeans )) …»^[10]

«the Gozan River is the River Balkh, i.e. the Oxus or the Amu Darya …»^[11]

«… and were brought into Halah (modern day Balkh), and Habor (which is Pesh Habor or Peshawar), and Hara (which is Herat), and to the river Gozan (which is the Ammoo, also called Jehoon) …»^[12]

Description[edit]

The river’s total length is 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) and its drainage basin totals 534,739 square kilometres (206,464 sq mi) in area, providing a mean discharge of around 97.4 cubic kilometres (23.4 cu mi)^[1] of water per year. The river is navigable for over 1,450 kilometres (900 mi). All of the water comes from the high mountains in the south where annual precipitation can be over 1,000 mm (39 in). Even before large-scale irrigation began, high summer evaporation meant that not all of this discharge reached the Aral Sea – though there is some evidence the large Pamir glaciers provided enough meltwater for the Aral to overflow during the 13th and 14th centuries.

Since the end of the 19th century there have been four different claimants as the true source of the Oxus:

• The Pamir River, which emerges from Lake Zorkul (once also known as Lake Victoria) in the Pamir Mountains (ancient Mount Imeon), and flows west to Qila-e Panja, where it joins the Wakhan River to form the Panj River.
• The Sarhad or Little Pamir River flowing down the Little Pamir in the High Wakhan
• Lake Chamaktin, which discharges to the east into the Aksu River, which in turn becomes the Murghab and then Bartang rivers, and which eventually joins the Panj Oxus branch 350 kilometres downstream at Roshan Vomar in Tajikistan.
• An ice cave at the end of the Wakhjir valley, in the Wakhan Corridor, in the Pamir Mountains, near the border with Pakistan.

A glacier turns into the Wakhan River and joins the Pamir River about 50 kilometres (31 mi) downstream.^[13] Bill Colegrave’s expedition to Wakhan in 2007 found that both claimants 2 and 3 had the same source, the Chelab stream, which bifurcates on the watershed of the Little Pamir, half flowing into Lake Chamaktin and half into the parent stream of the Little Pamir/Sarhad River. Therefore, the Chelab stream may be properly considered the true source or parent stream of the Oxus.^[14] The Panj River forms the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It flows west to Ishkashim where it turns north and then north-west through the Pamirs passing the Tajikistan–Afghanistan Friendship Bridge. It subsequently forms the border of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for about 200 kilometres (120 mi), passing Termez and the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge. It delineates the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for another 100 kilometres (62 mi) before it flows into Turkmenistan at Atamurat. It flows across Turkmenistan south to north, passing Türkmenabat, and forms the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from Halkabat. It is then split by the Tuyamuyun Hydro Complex into many waterways that used to form the river delta joining the Aral Sea, passing Urgench, Daşoguz, and other cities, but it does not reach what is left of the sea any more and is lost in the desert. Use of water from the Amu Darya for irrigation has been a major contributing factor to the shrinking of the Aral Sea since the late 1950s. Historical records state that in different periods, the river flowed into the Aral Sea (from the south), into the Caspian Sea (from the east), or both, similar to the Syr Darya (Jaxartes, in Ancient Greek).

Watershed[edit]

The 534,769 square kilometres (206,475 sq mi) of the Amu Darya drainage basin include most of Tajikistan, the southwest corner of Kyrgyzstan, the northeast corner of Afghanistan, a narrow portion of eastern Turkmenistan and the western half of Uzbekistan. Part of the Amu Darya basin divide in Tajikistan forms that country’s border with China (in the east) and Pakistan (to the south). About 61% of the drainage lies within Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, while 39% is in Afghanistan.^[15]

The abundant water flowing in the Amu Darya comes almost entirely from glaciers in the Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan,^[16]
which, standing above the surrounding arid plain, collect atmospheric moisture which otherwise would probably escape somewhere else. Without its mountain water sources, the Amu Darya would not exist—because it rarely rains in the lowlands through which most of the river flows. Of the total drainage area only about 200,000 square kilometres (77,000 sq mi) actively contribute water to the river.^[17]
This is because many of the river’s major tributaries (especially the Zeravshan River) have been diverted, and much of the river’s drainage is arid. Throughout most of the steppe, the annual rainfall is about 300 millimetres (12 in).^[15][18]

History[edit]

The ancient Greeks called the Amu Darya the Oxus. In ancient times, the river was regarded as the boundary between Greater Iran and Ṫūrān (Persian: تُوران).^[3] The river’s drainage lies in the area between the former empires of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great, although they occurred at very different times. When the Mongols came to the area, they used the water of the Amu Darya to flood Konye-Urgench.^[19] One southern route of the Silk Road ran along part of the Amu Darya northwestward from Termez before going westwards to the Caspian Sea.

It is believed^{[weasel words]} that the Amu Darya’s course across the Karakum Desert has gone through several major shifts in the past few thousand years.^[20] Much of the time – most recently from the 13th century to the late 16th century – the Amu Darya emptied into both the Aral and the Caspian Seas, reaching the latter via a large distributary called the Uzboy River. The Uzboy splits off from the main channel just south of the river’s delta. Sometimes the flow through the two branches was more or less equal, but often most of the Amu Darya’s flow split to the west and flowed into the Caspian.

People began to settle along the lower Amu Darya and the Uzboy in the 5th century, establishing a thriving chain of agricultural lands, towns, and cities. In about AD 985, the massive Gurganj Dam at the bifurcation of the forks started to divert water to the Aral. Genghis Khan’s troops destroyed the dam in 1221, and the Amu Darya shifted to distributing its flow more or less equally between the main stem and the Uzboy.^[21] But in the 18th century, the river again turned north, flowing into the Aral Sea, a path it has taken since. Less and less water flowed down the Uzboy. When Russian explorer Bekovich-Cherkasski surveyed the region in 1720, the Amu Darya did not flow into the Caspian Sea anymore.^[22]

By the 1800s, the ethnographic makeup of the region was described by Peter Kropotkin as the communities of «the vassal Khanates of Maimene, Khulm, Kunduz, and even the Badakshan and Wahkran.»^[23] An Englishman, William Moorcroft, visited the Oxus around 1824 during the Great Game period.^[24] Another Englishman, a naval officer called John Wood, came with an expedition to find the source of the river in 1839. He found modern-day Lake Zorkul, called it Lake Victoria, and proclaimed he had found the source.^[25] Then, the French explorer and geographer Thibaut Viné collected a lot of information about this area during five expeditions between 1856 and 1862.

The question of finding a route between the Oxus valley and India has been of concern historically. A direct route crosses extremely high mountain passes in the Hindu Kush and isolated areas like Kafiristan. Some in Britain feared that the Empire of Russia, which at the time wielded great influence over the Oxus area, would overcome these obstacles and find a suitable route through which to invade British India – but this never came to pass.^[26] The area was taken over by Russia during the Russian conquest of Turkestan.

The Soviet Union became the ruling power in the early 1920s and expelled Mohammed Alim Khan. It later put down the Basmachi movement and killed Ibrahim Bek. A large refugee population of Central Asians, including Turkmen, Tajiks and Uzbeks, fled to northern Afghanistan.^[27] In the 1960s and 1970s the Soviets started using the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya to irrigate extensive cotton fields in the Central Asian plain. Before this time, water from the rivers was already being used for agriculture, but not on this massive scale. The Qaraqum Canal, Karshi Canal, and Bukhara Canal were among the larger of the irrigation diversions built. However, the Main Turkmen Canal, which would have diverted water along the dry Uzboy River bed into central Turkmenistan, was never built. The 1970s, in the course of the Soviet–Afghan War, Soviet forces used the valley to invade Afghanistan through Termez.^[28] The Soviet Union fell in the 1990s and Central Asia split up into the many smaller countries that lie within or partially within the Amu Darya basin.^[29]

During the Soviet era, a resource-sharing system was instated in which Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan shared water originating from the Amu and Syr Daryas with Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in summer. In return, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan received Kazakh, Turkmen, and Uzbek coal, gas, and electricity in winter. After the fall of the Soviet Union this system disintegrated and the Central Asian nations have failed to reinstate it. Inadequate infrastructure, poor water-management, and outdated irrigation methods all exacerbate the issue.^[30]

Siberian Tiger Introduction Project[edit]

The Caspian tiger used to occur along the river’s banks.^[31] After its extirpation, the Darya’s delta was suggested as a potential site for the introduction of its closest surviving relative, the Siberian tiger. A feasibility study was initiated to investigate if the area is suitable and if such an initiative would receive support from relevant decision makers. A viable tiger population of about 100 animals would require at least 5,000 km² (1,900 sq mi) of large tracts of contiguous habitat with rich prey populations. Such habitat is not available at this stage and cannot be provided in the short term. The proposed region is therefore unsuitable for the reintroduction, at least at this stage.^[32]

[edit]

In January 2023 the Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Company (aka CAPEIC) signed a $720 million four-year investment deal with the Taliban government of Afghanistan for extraction on its side of the Amu Darya basin. The deal will see a 15% royalty given to the Afghan government over the course of its 25-year term.^{[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]} The Chinese see this basin as the third-largest potential gas field in the world.^[41]

Literature[edit]

The clashing noise of battle reached the sky

The blood of the Bengalees flowed like the river Jaihun.

~ Mirza Nathan describing a battle between the Mughals and Musa Khan of Bengal (translated by M. I. Borah)

The Oxus river, and Arnold’s poem, fire the imaginations of the children who adventure with ponies over the moors of the West Country in the 1930s children’s book The Far-Distant Oxus. There were two sequels, Escape to Persia and Oxus in Summer.^[43]

Robert Byron’s 1937 travelogue, The Road to Oxiana, describes its author’s journey from the Levant through Persia to Afghanistan, with the Oxus as his stated goal.^{[citation needed]}

George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman at the Charge, (1973), places Flashman on the Amu Darya and the Aral Sea during the (fictitious) Russian advance on India during The Great Game period.^{[citation needed]}

But the majestic River floated on,

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,
Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste,
Under the solitary moon: — he flowed
Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè,
Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands begin
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles —
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,
A foiled circuitous wanderer: — till at last
The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

~ Matthew Arnold, Sohrab and Rustum

See also[edit]

• Oxus Treasure
• Vankhsh River
• Mount Imeon
• Sherabad River
• Surkhan Darya
• Transoxiana
• Zeravshan River
• Extreme points of Afghanistan
• List of rivers of Afghanistan

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Curzon, George Nathaniel. 1896. The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus. Royal Geographical Society, London. Reprint: Elibron Classics Series, Adamant Media Corporation. 2005. ISBN 1-4021-5983-8 (pbk; ISBN 1-4021-3090-2 (hbk).
• Gordon, T. E. 1876. The Roof of the World: Being the Narrative of a Journey over the high plateau of Tibet to the Russian Frontier and the Oxus sources on Pamir. Edinburgh. Edmonston and Douglas. Reprint by Ch’eng Wen Publishing Company. Taipei. 1971.
• Toynbee, Arnold J. 1961. Between Oxus and Jumna. London. Oxford University Press.
• Wood, John, 1872. A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus. With an essay on the Geography of the Valley of the Oxus by Colonel Henry Yule. London: John Murray.

External links[edit]

• Drying of the Aral Sea: Timelapse on YouTube
• The Amu Darya Basin Network

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