Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, lying mainly between two major rivers, the northeastern Sir Darya and the southwestern Amu Darya, although these only partly form its borders. Almost four-fifths of Uzbekistan's territory, the sun-dried western part, looks like a wasteland. To the northwest, around the Aral Sea in Karakalpakstan, the Turan Plain rises 60-90 meters above sea level. This terrain converges with the Kyzylkum Desert to the south and, further west, the Ustyurt Plateau, a land of low ridges, salt marshes, sinkholes and caverns. To the south-east of the Aral Sea, small hills interrupt the low-lying plains of the Kyzylkum Desert, while to the east, a series of ridges separate the territory of Uzbekistan. The western Tien Shan consists of the Karzhantau, Ugam and Pskem ranges, the last of which contains the 4299-meter Beshtor Peak, which is the highest point in the country. The Chatkal and Kurama Mountain ranges are also part of western Tien Shan. The Zeravshan valley in south-central Uzbekistan opens out to the west, where the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara adorn this ancient cultural center. The catastrophic reduction in the flow of two historic rivers - the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya - has caused dramatic changes in the Aral Sea and significantly changed the delta of the Amu Darya. Most of the rivers in the delta are now dry, and the Aral Sea, which was once the world's fourth largest body of land water, has lost nine-tenths of its water volume and surface area since 1961. In both the north and east, huge shallow and dead ponds separated from the main remaining Aral Sea by sandbars.