The Chu is a river in Northern Kyrgyzstan and Southern Kazakhstan. Of its total length of 1,067 kilometres (663 mi), the first 115 kilometres are in Kyrgyzstan, then for 221 kilometres the river serves as the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and the last 731 kilometres are in Kazakhstan. It is one of the longest rivers in Kyrgyzstan and in Kazakhstan. It has a drainage basin of 62,500 square kilometres (24,100 sq mi).

Dungan is a Sinitic language spoken primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan by the Dungan people, an ethnic group related to the Hui people of China. Although it is derived from the Central Plains Mandarin of Gansu and Shaanxi, it is written in Cyrillic and contains loanwords and archaisms not found in other modern varieties of Mandarin.