River · Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
Amu Darya
Amu Darya is the great river of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. It travels some 2400 kilometres across deserts towards the Aral Sea, which its water hardly ever reaches today.
Picture credit: Petar Milošević (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Mario Biondi, writer (CC BY 2.5) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Amu Darya?
The river starts here: Pamir Mountains, where the Panj and the Vakhsh meet.
It ends in the historically the Aral Sea; today the water no longer reaches it.
Countries on the river: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
The story behind it
The Amu Darya is born where two mountain rivers meet, and it carries meltwater from the Pamir out into burning hot deserts. Its water is brown with fine sand, and the banks move so easily that the river can shift sideways after a strong flood. For thousands of years caravans crossed it on the Silk Road, and old cities such as Khiva grew up from its channels. Today canals lead most of the water onto huge cotton fields, so the river arrives at the end weak and thin. Because of that the Aral Sea, where it once ended, has shrunk dramatically, and rusty ships now stand in dry salt. Tigers once lived in the thickets along the banks; today people try to protect deer, wild boar and rare sturgeon-like fish there instead.
Questions children ask
How long is the Amu Darya?
The Amu Darya is about 2400 kilometres long. If the mountain rivers that form it are counted as well, some books give a clearly larger number.
Which countries does the Amu Darya flow through?
Here the Amu Darya is listed for Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. In both of these dry countries it is by far the most important source of water.
Where does the Amu Darya end?
The Amu Darya used to end in the Aral Sea. So much water is taken for fields that the river usually dries out in the desert before it gets there.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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