Sirdaryo

Sirdaryo also spelled as Syrdarya is a city in Sirdaryo Region of Uzbekistan. It serves as the administrative center of Sirdaryo District.The Syr Darya is formed by the confluence of the Naryn and Qoradaryo rivers in the eastern Fergana Valley and generally flows northwest until it empties into the Aral Sea. With a length of 1,374 miles (2,212 km)—1,876 miles (3,019 km) including the Naryn—the Syr Darya is the longest river in Central Asia, but it carries less water than the Amu Darya. Its watershed is not clearly defined except in its upper course, where it drains a basin of 178,000 square miles (462,000 square km). Most of the Syr Darya’s tributaries in the Fergana Valley fail to reach it because they are used fully for irrigation.

There are a number of hydroelectric power stations on the Syr Darya and its tributaries, of which the largest are the Farhod (in Uzbekistan), Qayroqqum (Tajikistan), and Shardara (Kazakhstan) stations on the main stream and, in Uzbekistan, the Chorwoq station on the Chirchiq River and the Uchqŭrghon station on the Naryn River. There are also dams in Kazakhstan at Qyzylorda and Qazaly. The Toktogul hydroelectric power station, which was constructed on the Naryn River in the 1970s and expanded in the ’80s, regulates the river’s flow. As much as 5,000,000 acres (2,000,000 hectares) of land are irrigated by the Syr Darya and its tributaries, with cotton the chief crop in the Fergana Valley and the Syr Darya’s middle course and rice in the river’s lower reaches.