Key facts
- Location
- Kyzyl Kum
- Lake type
- artificial lake
- Basin countries
- Uzbekistan
- Max length
- 250 km (160 mi)
- Max width
- 15 km (9.3 mi)
- Surface area
- 3,000 km (1,200 sq mi)
- Water volume
- 44.3 km (10.6 cu mi)
- Official name
- Aydar-Arnasay Lakes system
- Designated
- 20 October 2008
via Wikipedia infobox
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Aydar Lake (Uzbek: Aydar Ko‘li, Айдар кўли; Haydar ko‘li, Ҳайдар кўли; alternate spellings: Lake Aydarkul, Lake Aidarkul) is part of the man-made Aydar-Arnasay system of lakes, which covers 4,000 square kilometres (1,500 mi). This has 3 brackish water lakes (the two others being Arnasay and Tuzkan), deep basins of the south-eastern Kyzyl Kum (now in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan). The lakes are expansive reservoirs of Soviet planning.
Being brackish rather than saline they have high rates of evaporation, prompting a moist summer microclimate, often attracting rain clouds, which has led to the replenishment of the North Aral Sea. It is also known as sea in the sand due to its wide sandy beaches and clean salty water.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Aydar Lake” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.