Amu Darya

Amu Darya
Amu Darya Delta from space, November 1994
Origin	Pamir Mountains
Mouth	None, formerly Aral Sea
Basin countries	Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
Length	2,400 km (1,500 mi)
Source elevation	~6,000 m (20,000 ft)
Avg. discharge	2,525 m3/s (89,200 cu ft/s)[1]
Basin area	534,739 km2 (206,464 sq mi)

The Amu Darya (archaic: Oxus River) is a major river in Central Asia. Its name is sometimes represented in a single word, Amudarya (Tajik: Омударё or дарёи Ому - Omudaryo or daryoi Omu; Persian: آمودریا - Âmudaryâ; Uzbek: Amudaryo, Turkmen: Amyderýa, with darya (Pahlavi) meaning sea or a very large river). It is formed by the junction of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers.

Names

Pontoon Bridge on the Amu Darya near Urgench

Amu is said to have come from the city of Āmul, now known as Türkmenabat. Many local people refer to the river as Jayhoun (جيحون) (Ceyhun in Turkish) which was thought to be a derivative of Gihon, the biblical name for one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden or paradise.^[2] The river is also known by this name to most of the medieval Islamic writers.

In classical antiquity, the river was known as the Oxus in Greek--a clear derivative of Vakhsh—the name of the largest tributary of the Amu. It was known as Jayhun or Gihun in ancient Arabic sources. Jayhun was likely influenced by Dgihun, the traditional name given to it by the people who inhabited its surrounding region.^[3]

In Vayu Purana and Matsya Purana, the Oxus is mentioned as the river Chakshu, flowing through the countries of Tusharas (Rishikas?), Lampakas, Pahlavas, Paradas and Shakas etc.

Description

Map of area around the Aral Sea. Aral Sea boundaries are circa 1960. Countries at least partially in the Aral Sea watershed are in yellow.

The river is navigable for over 1450 km (800 miles). Its total length is 2400 km (1500 miles) 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. 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 melt water for the Aral to overflow during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries A.D.

One source of the Amu Darya is 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.

Another claimed source of the Amu Darya is 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^[4]).

The Panj River forms the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It flows west to Ishkashim where it turns north and then east north-west through the Hindu Kush passing the Tajik-Afghan 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 follows the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for another 100 kilometres (62 mi) before it flows into Turkmenistan at Atamyrat. As the Amudarya, it flows across Turkmenistan south to north, passing Türkmenabat, and forms the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from Halkabat. It is then split 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 anymore 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), the Caspian Sea (from the east) or both, similar to the Syr Darya (Jaxartes, in Ancient Greek).

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Amu Darya

• Syr Darya
• Transoxiana
• Mount Imeon

References

• 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.

Notes

Coordinates: 37°06′21″N 68°18′23″E / 37.10583°N 68.30639°E / 37.10583; 68.30639