Syr Darya

The Syr Darya is a river in Central Asia. Its name, which comes from Persian, means Syr Sea or Syr River. It starts in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan, flowing west and north-west for about 2,256 kilometers through Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan. Eventually, it reaches the northern parts of the Aral Sea. The Syr Darya is one of the two main rivers that feed into the Aral Sea. The other is the Amu Darya. In the past, extensive irrigation projects took water from these rivers for farmland, leading to the shrinking of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest lake. The point where the river enters Uzbekistan from Tajikistan is the lowest elevation in Tajikistan, at 300 meters above sea level. Name The local name Syr (Sïr) appeared in the 16th century. In the 17th century, Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan, a historian and ruler of Khiva, referred to the Aral Sea as the "Sea of Sïr" or Sïr Tengizi. The second part of the name, "darya," means "lake" or "sea" in Persian, and "river" in Tajik. This name has been used since the 18th century. References