Amu Darya: Encyclopedia - Amu Darya

Amu Darya

The Amu Darya (also Amudarya, Amudar'ya, in Persian آمودریا; Darya means "Sea" in Persian) is a river in Central Asia. It is navigable for over 1450 km (800 miles). Its total length is 2400 km (1500 miles). In Classical Antiquity, the river was known as the Oxus in Greek.

It rises in the Pamir Mountains as the Pamir River, emerging from Zorkul, flowing east until Ishtragh, where it turns north and then east north-west through the Hindu Kush as the Panj, forming the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and subsequently the border of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for about 200 km, passing Termez and the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge. It follows the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for another 100 km before it flows into Turkmenistan at Kerki. As Amudarya, it flows across Turkmenistan south to north, passing Turkmenabat, and forms the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from Khalkabad. It is then split into many waterways that used to form the river delta joining the Aral Sea, passing Urgench, Dashoguz and other cities, but it does not reach what is left of the sea anymore and is lost in the desert.

Use of water from the Amu Darya for irrigation has been a major contributing factor in 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), the Caspian Sea (from the east) or both, similar to the Syr Darya (Jaxartes, in Ancient Greek).

See also

• Syr Darya
• Transoxiana

Categories: Rivers of Afghanistan | Rivers of Turkmenistan | Rivers of Uzbekistan

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Amu Darya", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki