Syr Darya

Syr Darya or Syrdarya , ancient Jaxartes or Yaxartes, Pers. Sihun, river, c.1,380 mi (2,220 km) long, flowing through Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. One of the principal rivers of central Asia, it is formed in the Fergana Valley , E Uzbekistan, by the junction of the Naryn and Kara Darya rivers, which rise in the Tian Shan mts. It flows W through Tajikistan, then NW through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, past Kyzylorda, and into the northern basin of the Aral Sea. Its shallowness makes it unfit for navigation, but its waters are used for irrigating the important cotton-growing areas along its course and for hydroelectric power. The Syr Darya forms the northern and eastern limits of the Kyzyl Kum desert. It is paralleled in its lower course by the Trans-Caspian RR. Alexander the Great in his conquest of Persia reached the river c.329 BC and may have founded the chief city on its course—Khudjand—on the site of an older city.

Syr Darya, Uzbekistan‐Tajikistan‐Kazakhstan Sayhun, Jaxartes A river known to the Greeks as the Jaxartes with the present name meaning ‘Mysterious River’ from the Uzbek sir ‘mysterious’ and the Persian darya ‘river’ or Uzbek darë ‘river’. It is perhaps mysterious in that its course meanders with several bed changes and often channels are formed which run out into the sand. The town of Syr Dar′ya is in Uzbekistan.