Amu Darya
Map of Central Asia with the Amu- Darya and Syr -Darya. The Aral Sea is shown in size from circa 1960.
Amu Darya delta 1994
Catchment area of the Amu Darya River with tributaries
Template: Infobox River / Obsolete
The Amu Darya (also: Amudarya or Amu Darya, or in Persian آمودریا Amudarya, from the Old Persian " drayah " on Middle Persian ( Pahlavi ) " drayak " meaning " sea " or " large creek "; Uzbek Amudaryo; Tajik Омударё / Omudarjo, Turkmen Amyderýa; karakalpakisch A'miwda'rya; Arab جيحون Dschaiḥūn / Gihon; russian Амударья / Amu Darya, in ancient times: Oxus, Oxus, Oaxus or Uaxos ) is a total of 2743 km ( 1415 km as Amu Darya ) long river in the western Central Asia.
River
The Amu Darya is formed on the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan from the union of the Panj and Vakhsh of.
After this confluence, which is located in a sprawling valley of the upper reaches of the Amu Darya forms for a short distance the border of Afghanistan to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to Afghanistan. Shortly after the point at which boundary and river separate, south of Atamyrat, branches off to the west of the Karakum Canal from ( ⊙ 37.57866666666765.7175 ). Shortly thereafter, at Atamyrat, branches off to the east of the Qarshi channel from the Talimardschan reservoir. More fluent in a northwesterly direction, the Amu Darya now the border between the deserts of Karakum and Kyzyl Kum and partly between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan is forming in its lower reaches the large oasis of Khorezm before it reaches an inland delta in the Uzbek Karakalpakstan, that of a few decades ago in the southern part Aral Sea resulted. Nowadays, the Amudarya reached the remaining remnants of the Aral Sea no longer, but the Delta before ending in the desert, where the residual water of the river dried up.
Flow lengths
The Amu Darya was 2539 km long, with its source longest river Wachandarja even 2743 km along with its source river Panj left to the former flows into the Aral Sea. From the confluence of the headwaters Panj ( 1125 km long) and Vakhsh (524 km) to the Aral Sea was the length of 1414 km. Since the 1970s, he dried up from time to time, since the 1990s permanently before reaching the Aral Sea residual areas that are almost entirely disappeared in the southwest part of the former lake in the southeast. The undertaken since 2007 trying to slowly fill the former lake by limiting the water extraction from the tributaries again, previously limited to its northern part.
Water balance and navigability
The catchment area of the Amu Darya is 465,000 km ². Between 1911 and 1960 the river at its mouth into the Aral Sea still had a discharge rate of an average of 1775 m³ / s. Currently is already taken by the built dams on the Vakhsh River source water. In the Karakum Canal annually will be 12 km ³ ( about 380 m³ / s). When crossing the deserts lost an estimated 40 %, which were before 1970 the year 790 m³ / s Since the 1970s, irrigation withdraw on average over 1580 m³ / s This has the consequence that the Amu Darya now dried up after about 2,300 km long and the Aral Sea is thus no longer achieved, which encourages the drying up even further.
The Amu Darya is navigable below Termez at 1,450 km in length.
History
Tectonic movements in the Pliocene rose and fell, the region around the Aral Sea. This changed the course of rivers. So flowed the ( paleo- ) Oxus by the Ungus, the Usboi or Schelif Darya near the Afghan border. However, about 150,000 years ago, he turned finally to the Aral Sea.
The Oxus was the thriving on its banks Oxus culture and the ancient landscape Transoxiana her name; on the upper reaches of the river was among other things the ancient country Bactria.
In ancient times, the historian Polybius discussed (2nd century BC) in his History (Book X.48 ), at which point the flow can be exceeded by the nomads. According to a strange, if not impossible report, the nomads could behind a rock wall cross at a waterfall the river. However plausible seemed to him a second source that makes a crossing of the river below the cataract oversized slabs probably where the Amu Darya / Oxus flows partially underground.
The site of the so-called Amu Darya or Oxus treasure lay on the Amu Darya.
In Turkish the river " Ceyhun " is called, and this name is rarely used as a first name.
Places
At the Amu Darya are, among other Termez, Atamyrat, Turkmenabat, Beruniy (the old Kath ) and Nukus. Approximately 70 km from the confluence of the Panj and Vakhsh is the Afghan city of Kunduz. Also, Mazar- e Sharif and Balkh are not further away from the river.