Modern · Shirin
Farkhad Hydropower Station
Built by mass volunteer labour during the war
Nature · Sirdaryo District
Syr Darya
Central Asia’s longest river flows along the edge of the Hungry Steppe; the ancient Greeks called it the Jaxartes and Arab geographers the Sayhun.
The river
The Syr Darya is the longest river in Central Asia and second only to the Amu Darya in volume. It runs for 2,212 km — 3,019 km measured from the source of the Naryn — and drains a basin of 219,000 km². Leaving the Fergana Valley, it cuts through the Farkhad hills and then winds across a broad, partly marshy floodplain along the edge of the Hungry Steppe. Sirdaryo Region lies on its left bank, with Gulistan and the town of Sirdaryo close to the river; in its middle reaches it is joined by the Akhangaran, Chirchiq and Keles. The river forms the region’s eastern boundary with Tashkent Region; 27 km below the Chirchiq confluence its mean flow is 724 m³/s.
Strabo and Ptolemy knew it as the Jaxartes, a name probably derived from Old Persian for “true pearl”. Muslim sources call it the Sayhun, and the modern name Syr Darya spread only in the 18th–19th centuries. The region’s Sayxunobod District still echoes the old name.
Along the banks
Tugai woodland of poplar, willow, oleaster and tamarisk survives along the river, and oxbow lakes such as Qolgansir lie in old channels. Jackals, jungle cats, pheasants and wild ducks live in the thickets, and for local people the riverbank is a place for fishing and family outings.
