Sarygamysh Lake

Sarygamysh fills a depression on the Turkmen-Uzbek border that has flooded and dried repeatedly over the centuries as the Amu Darya shifted course, and its present body of water is the result of drainage from cotton irrigation running into it through the twentieth century. It is saline and rising and falling with the flow. Fish were introduced and a fishery operates. Waterbirds use it in numbers on migration, and the shores are bare.

Background

Set roughly halfway between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea, this is the largest lake in Turkmenistan. It covers 3955 square kilometres, is 125 kilometres long and 90 kilometres wide, averages 8 metres deep and reaches 40 metres at most. Until the 17th century its water came from the Uzboy, a distributary of the Amu Darya that carried on to the Caspian. The Russian geographer Nikolai Petrusevich first charted it in 1876, and Amu Darya water last flowed straight in during the flood of 1878. Since the early 1960s drainage water from farmland has filled it through the Daryalyk collector. More than 20,000 waterbirds use it regularly.

Source: Wikipedia, "Sarygamysh Lake"

The landscape

• The lake - a large body of water in a depression that has filled and dried repeatedly.
• The drainage origin - the present lake formed from irrigation runoff.
• The migratory birds - the waterfowl using the lake on passage.
• The bare shores - salt flats and desert running down to the water.

When to go

April to May and September to October have the best conditions and the bird passage. Summer heat is extreme with no shade. Winter is cold and windy.

What to expect

The lake sits in a border zone and permits may be required. There are no facilities anywhere on the shore. Water quality is poor and the salinity is high.

Nearby

Dashoguz is southeast, and Konye-Urgench is south.

Key facts