Turkey
Turkey the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous strait and the Dardanelles. Turkey is bordered by Bulgaria to its northwest. Istanbul is the largest city. 70 to 80 per cent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest minority. At various points in its history, the region has been inhabited by diverse civilizations including the Assyrians, Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians. Hellenization continued into the Byzantine era; the Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolizes the start and foundation of Turkey. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th-century, the Ottomans started uniting these Turkish principalities.
After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. In the following centuries the state entered a period of decline with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In an effort to consolidate the weakening social and political foundations of the empire, Mahmut II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in all areas of the state including the military and bureaucracy along with the emancipation of all citizens. In 1913, a coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian and Pontic Greek subjects. Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states; the Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues against occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of monarchy in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president.
Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of Western thought and customs into the new form of Turkish government. The Kurdish–Turkish conflict, an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and Kurdish insurgents, has been active since 1984 in the southeast of the country. Various Kurdish groups demand separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC and G-20. After becoming one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005 which have been stopped by the EU in 2017 due to "Turkey's path toward autocratic rule". Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives led to its recognition as a regional power while its location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history.
Turkey is a secular, unitary parliamentary republic which adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017. Turkey's current administration headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam, undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the press; the English name of Turkey means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of Turkye is evidenced in an early work by Chaucer called The Book of the Duchess; the phrase land of Torke is used in the 15th-century Digby Mysteries. Usages can be found in the Dunbar poems, the 16th century Manipulus Vocabulorum and Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum; the modern spelling "Turkey" dates back to at least 1719. The Turkish name Türkiye was adopted in 1923 under the influence of European usage; the Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period.
Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated; the European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC. Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made religious structure, a temple dating to circa 10,000 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately
Textile
A textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibers. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, cotton, hemp, or other materials to produce long strands. Textiles are formed by weaving, crocheting, knotting or tatting, felting, or braiding; the related words "fabric" and "cloth" and "material" are used in textile assembly trades as synonyms for textile. However, there are subtle differences in these terms in specialized usage. A textile is any material made of interlacing fibres, including carpeting and geotextiles. A fabric is a material made through weaving, spreading, crocheting, or bonding that may be used in production of further goods. Cloth may be used synonymously with fabric but is a piece of fabric, processed; the word'textile' is from Latin, from the adjective textilis, meaning'woven', from textus, the past participle of the verb texere,'to weave'. The word'fabric' derives from Latin, most from the Middle French fabrique, or'building, thing made', earlier as the Latin fabrica'workshop.
The word'cloth' derives from the Old English clað, meaning a cloth, woven or felted material to wrap around one, from Proto-Germanic kalithaz. The first clothes, worn at least 70,000 years ago and much earlier, were made of animal skins and helped protect early humans from the ice ages. At some point people learned to weave plant fibers into textiles; the discovery of dyed flax fibres in a cave in the Republic of Georgia dated to 34,000 BCE suggests textile-like materials were made in prehistoric times. The production of textiles is a craft whose speed and scale of production has been altered beyond recognition by industrialization and the introduction of modern manufacturing techniques. However, for the main types of textiles, plain weave, twill, or satin weave, there is little difference between the ancient and modern methods. Textiles have an assortment of uses, the most common of which are for clothing and for containers such as bags and baskets. In the household they are used in carpeting, upholstered furnishings, window shades, coverings for tables and other flat surfaces, in art.
In the workplace they are used in scientific processes such as filtering. Miscellaneous uses include flags, tents, handkerchiefs, cleaning rags, transportation devices such as balloons, kites and parachutes. Textiles are used in many traditional crafts such as sewing and embroidery. Textiles for industrial purposes, chosen for characteristics other than their appearance, are referred to as technical textiles. Technical textiles include textile structures for automotive applications, medical textiles, agrotextiles, protective clothing. In all these applications stringent performance requirements must be met. Woven of threads coated with zinc oxide nanowires, laboratory fabric has been shown capable of "self-powering nanosystems" using vibrations created by everyday actions like wind or body movements. Textiles are made from many materials, with four main sources: animal, plant and synthetic; the first three are natural. In the 20th century, they were supplemented by artificial fibres made from petroleum.
Textiles are made in various strengths and degrees of durability, from the finest microfibre made of strands thinner than one denier to the sturdiest canvas. Textile manufacturing terminology has a wealth of descriptive terms, from light gauze-like gossamer to heavy grosgrain cloth and beyond. Animal textiles are made from hair, skin or silk. Wool refers to the hair of the domestic sheep or goat, distinguished from other types of animal hair in that the individual strands are coated with scales and crimped, the wool as a whole is coated with a wax mixture known as lanolin, waterproof and dirtproof. Woollen refers to a bulkier yarn produced from carded, non-parallel fibre, while worsted refers to a finer yarn spun from longer fibres which have been combed to be parallel. Wool is used for warm clothing. Cashmere, the hair of the Indian cashmere goat, mohair, the hair of the North African angora goat, are types of wool known for their softness. Other animal textiles which are made from hair or fur are alpaca wool, vicuña wool, llama wool, camel hair used in the production of coats, ponchos and other warm coverings.
Angora refers to the long, soft hair of the angora rabbit. Qiviut is the fine inner wool of the muskox. Wadmal is a coarse cloth made of wool, produced in Scandinavia 1000~1500 CE. Sea silk is an fine and valuable fabric, made from the silky filaments or byssus secreted by a gland in the foot of pen shells. Silk is an animal textile made from the fibres of the cocoon of the Chinese silkworm, spun into a smooth fabric prized for its softness. There are two main ty
Sunshine duration
Sunshine duration or sunshine hours is a climatological indicator, measuring duration of sunshine in given period for a given location on Earth expressed as an averaged value over several years. It is a general indicator of cloudiness of a location, thus differs from insolation, which measures the total energy delivered by sunlight over a given period. Sunshine duration is expressed in hours per year, or in hours per day; the first measure indicates the general sunniness of a location compared with other places, while the latter allows for comparison of sunshine in various seasons in the same location. Another often-used measure is percentage ratio of recorded bright sunshine duration and daylight duration in the observed period. An important use of sunshine duration data is to characterize the climate of sites of health resorts; this takes into account the psychological effect of strong solar light on human well-being. It is used to promote tourist destinations. If the Sun were to be above the horizon 50% of the time for a standard year consisting of 8,760 hours, apparent maximal daytime duration would be 4,380 hours for any point on Earth.
However, there are physical and astronomical effects. Namely, atmospheric refraction allows the Sun to be still visible when it physically sets below the horizon. For that reason, average daytime is longest in polar areas, where the apparent Sun spends the most time around the horizon. Places on the Arctic Circle have the longest total annual daytime, 4,647 hours, while the North Pole receives 4,575; because of elliptic nature of the Earth's orbit, the Southern Hemisphere is not symmetrical: the Antarctic Circle, with 4,530 hours of daylight, receives five days less of sunshine than its antipodes. The Equator has a total daytime of 4,422 hours per year. Given the theoretical maximum of daytime duration for a given location, there is a practical consideration at which point the amount of daylight is sufficient to be treated as a "sunshine hour". "Bright" sunshine hours represent the total hours when the sunlight is stronger than a specified threshold, as opposed to just "visible" hours. "Visible" sunshine, for example, occurs around sunrise and sunset, but is not strong enough to excite the sensor.
Measurement is performed by instruments called sunshine recorders. For the specific purpose of sunshine duration recording, Campbell–Stokes recorders are used, which use a spherical glass lens to focus the sun rays on a specially designed tape; when the intensity exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the tape burns. The total length of the burn trace is proportional to the number of bright hours. Another type of recorder is the Jordan sunshine recorder. Newer, electronic recorders have more stable sensitivity than that of the paper tape. In order to harmonize the data measured worldwide, in 1962 the World Meteorological Organization defined a standardized design of the Campbell–Stokes recorder, called an Interim Reference Sunshine Recorder. In 2003, the sunshine duration was defined as the period during which direct solar irradiance exceeds a threshold value of 120 W/m². Sunshine duration follows a general geographic pattern: subtropical latitudes have the highest sunshine values, because these are the locations of the eastern sides of the subtropical high pressure systems, associated with the large-scale descent of air from the upper-level tropopause.
Many of the world's driest climates are found adjacent to the eastern sides of the subtropical highs, which create stable atmospheric conditions, little convective overturning, little moisture and cloud cover. Desert regions, with nearly constant high pressure aloft and rare condensation—like North Africa, the Southwestern United States, Western Australia, the Middle East—are examples of hot, dry climates where sunshine duration values are high; the two major areas with the highest sunshine duration, measured as annual average, are the central and the eastern Sahara Desert—covering vast desert countries such as Egypt, Libya and Niger—and the Southwestern United States. The city claiming the official title of the sunniest in the world is Yuma, with over 4,000 hours of bright sunshine annually, but many climatological books suggest there may be sunnier areas in North Africa. In the belt encompassing northern Chad and the Tibesti Mountains, northern Sudan, southern Libya, Upper Egypt, annual sunshine duration is estimated at over 4,000 hours.
There is a smaller, isolated area of sunshine maximum in the heart of the western section of the Sahara Desert around the Eglab Massif and the Erg Chech, along the borders of Algeria and Mali where the 4,000-hour mark is exceeded, too. Some places in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula receive 3,600–3,800 hours of bright sunshine annually; the largest sun-baked region in the world is North Africa. The sunniest month in the world is December in Eastern Antarctica, with 23 hours of bright sun daily. Conversely, higher latitudes lying in stormy westerlies have much cloudier and more unstable and rainy weather, have the lowest values of sunshine duration annually. Temperate oceanic climates like those in northwestern Europe, the western coast of Canada, areas of New Zealand's South Island are examples of cool, wet, humid climates where cloudless sunshine duration values are low; the areas with the lowest sunshine duration annually lie over the polar oceans, as well as parts of northern Europe, southern Alaska, northern Russia, areas near the Sea of
Amol
Amol is a city and the administrative center of Amol County, Mazandaran Province, Iran. In the 2006 census, the surveyed population of the city was 197,470, in 55,183 families. Amol is located on the Haraz river bank, it is less than 20 kilometres south of the Caspian sea and less than 10 kilometres north of the Alborz mountains. It is 180 kilometres from Tehran, 60 kilometres west of the provincial capital, Sari. Amol is a historic city, with its foundation dating back to the Amard. Ammianus Marcellinus says the name; some historians have attributed it to the rise of the city during Tahmuras and casual meeting Fereydun. In fact, Amol is one of the most ancient cities of Iran. A number of historians and geographers believe it was established in 1st millennium BC; some historians have attributed the rise of the city during Tahmuras. Some past historians have associated this ancient city with the periods of the Pishdadian dynasty and the Kayanian dynasty. Amol is an old city, with a history dating back to the Amards.
Amards were the people inhabiting the area before the arrival of Aryans, who had migrated to and settled on the Iranian Plateau from the late 2nd millennium BCE to early 1st millennium BCE. Many scholars believe. According to historical literature, Amol was the capital of Mazandaran, at least in the period starting from Sassanid Empire to the Ilkhanate dynasty of Mongol Empire. Though they are a Median tribe, Herodotus names a tribe called Mardians as one of the ten to fifteen Persian tribes in Persis, it is now known that the only distinction between the Median Amardians and the Persian Mardians is the'a' in the beginning of Amardians, which would mean they are two different tribes. Elsewhere he says, one of the peoples who have trusted Darius IIgor M. Diakonoff says, Amardian lived in the coasts of the Caspian Sea, in the distance of the Alban and Otia from the north and the Hyrcanian from the east. Strabo says about Amard people, the Mard wore black robes, had long everyone was braver, he was allowed to marry any women.
In the history of the Persian Empire, the Mard were handsome and brave persons presented in the heart of the army and were responsible to defense the commander. The Amard helped Achaemenid in several battles including the invasion of Greece, the occupation of Sardis, the attack of Medes and at the Battle of Opis; the other theory about Amol via Ibn Isfandiyar says, at the request of wife Firoz Shah, he created a large and flourishing city named Amele. Further evidence of the power of the Amol people is their fighting in the Battle of Thermopylae, Battle of Gaugamela and other Sardis forces in the Achaemenid Empire. During the age of the Parthian Empire, Amol was one of the centers of Iran, it seems that Amol's reputation in the time of Alexander the Great and the Parthian period dominated the political-administrative Satrap was Hyrcanian. According to historical literature, Amol was the capital of Mazandaran during the period starting from the 3rd century CE under the Sassanian Empire to the 13/14th century CE under the Ilkhanate dynasty of Mongol Empire.
Based on evidences, including the coins found during excavations in addition to Muslim historical books, Amol was the capital of Mazandaran province during the Sassanid Era. According to historical literature, Amol was the capital of Mazandaran during the period starting from the 3rd century under Sassanian Empire to the 13/14th century under the Ilkhanate dynasty of Mongol Empire. On Sasanian coins, coin cities where there has been abbreviated name is known. During the Bahram V Amol were Central of Iran and at during the Khosrow II and Dabuyid dynasty capital Mazandaran. Amu Darya Sasanian mid pers river about 2,500 km long, regarded in ancient times as the boundary between Iran and Turan, the modern name may be derived from Amol. In city during this period has Temple, fireplace there was. Amol, in the era of the Alid dynasties and Marashis dynasty, was the capital of Northern Iran; the inhabitants of Amol embraced Islam during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph. Amol was the capital city of the Bavand dynasty and Ziyarid dynasty.
Today, Amol is a thriving modern metropolis. In the Abbasid Caliphate of the ninth century, Amol was one of the largest cities in Iran. Khalid ibn Barmak ruled for years. People from the Qarinvand dynasty arrived a couple of years and fought with the Abbasid Caliphate to win the kingdom. In Hudud al - ` Alam, Amol is regarded as a great city with active trading ventures. However, resentment with the Tahirids rule increased due to the oppressive activities of their officials. People of the provinces pledged alliance to Hasan ibn Zayd. Zayd became the founder of the Zaydid dynasty of Tabaristan Alavids government in Tabaristan established and its with Amol centered and 106 year domination of the Abbasids in the territory ended. Yaqub ibn Layth the was geostrategy in Amol. Hasan al-Utrush with trip to Amol who re-established Zaydid rule over the province Tabaristan in northern Iran in 914, after fourteen years of Samanid rule. After the Alid dynasty, the Ziyarid dynasty ruled Tabaristan. At this time Amol was developed in such a way that geographers have written articles about the industry and its silk.
The subsequent Afrasiyab dynasty flourished in the late pre-Safavid period. It was founded by Kiya Afrasiyab, who conquered the Bavand kingdom in 1349 and made himself king of the region, in Amol. In time of the Safavid rulers of Mazandaran, Amol experienced a period of growth; the city was the fav
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks known in English as Bolshevists, were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The RSDLP was a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898 in Minsk, Belarus to unite the various revolutionary organisations of the Russian Empire into one party. In the Second Party Congress vote, the Bolsheviks won on the majority of important issues, hence their name, they became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks, or Reds, came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. With the Reds defeating the Whites and others during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Union in December 1922; the Bolsheviks, founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov, were by 1905 a major organization consisting of workers under a democratic internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism, who considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia.
Their beliefs and practices were referred to as Bolshevism. In the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP held in Brussels and London, UK during August 1903, Lenin and Julius Martov disagreed over the membership rules. Lenin wanted members who financially supported the party and participated in it. Martov suggested "by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the party's organisations". Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a smaller core of active members as opposed to card carriers who might only be active in party branches from time to time or not at all; this active base would develop the cadre, a core of professional revolutionaries, consisting of loyal communists who would spend most of their time organising the party toward a mass revolutionary party capable of leading a workers' revolution against the Tsarist autocracy. A main source of the factions could be directly attributed to Lenin's steadfast opinion and what was described by Plekhanov as his inability to "bear opinions which were contrary to his own".
It was obvious at early stages in Lenin's revolutionary practices that he would not be willing to concede on any party policy that conflicted with his own predetermined ideas. It was the loyalty that he had to his own self-envisioned utopia. Lenin was seen by fellow party members as being so narrow-minded that he believed that anyone who didn't follow him was his enemy. Leon Trotsky, one of Lenin's fellow revolutionaries, compared Lenin in 1904 to the French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre. Lenin's view of politics as verbal and ideological warfare and his inability to accept criticism if it came from his own dedicated followers was the reason behind this accusation; the root of the split was a book titled What Is To Be Done? that Lenin wrote while serving a sentence of exile. In Germany, the book was published in 1902. In Russia, strict censorship outlawed its distribution. One of the main points of Lenin's writing was that a revolution can only be achieved by the strong leadership of one person over the masses.
After the proposed revolution had overthrown the government, this individual leader must release power to allow socialism to encompass the nation. Lenin wrote that revolutionary leaders must dedicate their entire lives to the cause in order for it to be successful. Lenin said that if professional revolutionaries did not maintain control over the workers they would lose sight of the party's objective and adopt opposing beliefs abandon the revolution entirely. Lenin's view of a socialist intelligentsia showed that he was not a complete supporter of Marxist theory, which created some party unrest. For example, Lenin agreed with the Marxist idea of eliminating social classes, but in his utopian society there would still be visible distinctions between those in politics and the common worker. Most party members considered unequal treatment of workers immoral and were loyal to the idea of a classless society, therefore Lenin's variations caused internal dissonance. Although the party split of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks would not become official until 1903, the differences began to surface with the publication of What Is To Be Done?.
Through the influence of the book, Lenin undermined another group of reformers known as "Economists", who were pushing for economic reform while wanting to leave the government unchanged and who failed to recognize the importance of uniting the working population behind the party's cause. Other than the debate between Lenin and Martov, Lenin felt membership should require support of the party program, financial contributions and involvement in a party organization whereas Martov did not see the need for joining Party organizations, internal unrest rose over the structure, best suited for Soviet power; as discussed in What Is To Be Done?, Lenin believed that a rigid political structure was needed to initiate a formal revolution. This idea was met with opposition from his once close followers including Julius Martov, Georgy Plekhanov, Leon Trotsky and Pavel Axelrod. Plekhanov and Lenin's major dispute arose addressing the topic of nationalizing land or leaving it for private use. Lenin wanted to nationalize to aid in collectivization whereas Plekhanov thought worker motivation would remain higher if individuals were able to maintain their own property.
Those who opposed Lenin and wanted to continue on the Marxist path t
Junction (rail)
A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes, provided by points and signalling. Junctions are important for rail systems, their installation into a rail system can reduce route capacity, have a powerful impact upon on-time performance. In a simple case where two routes with one or two tracks each meet at a junction, a simple layout of tracks suffices to allow trains to transfer from one route to the other. More complicated junctions are needed to permit trains to travel in either direction after joining the new route, for example by providing a triangular track layout. In this latter case, the three points of the triangle may be given different names, for example using points of the compass as well as the name of the overall place. Rail transport operations refer to stations that lie on or near a railway junction as a junction station. In the UK it is customary for the junction to be named after the next station on the branch, e.g. Yeovil Junction is on the mainline railway south of Yeovil, the next destination on the branch is Yeovil Pen Mill.
Trains are built up and taken apart at such stations so that the same train can split up and go to multiple destinations. For goods trains, marshalling yards serve a similar purpose; the world's first railway junction was Newton Junction near Newton-le-Willows, England where, in 1831, two railways merged. The capacity of the junctions limits the capacity of a railway network more than the capacity of individual railway lines; this applies more. Measures to improve junctions are more useful than building new railway lines; the capacity of a railway junction can be increased with improved signalling measures, by building points suitable for higher speeds, or by turning level junctions into flying junctions. With more complicated junctions such construction can become expensive if space is restricted by tunnels, bridges or inner-city tracks; the installation of junctions into a rail system poses many challenges, including increased maintenance costs, problems in on-time performance. Rapid transit have a rail network design.
Passengers, not trains, move from one train station to another. Metro style rail systems have become popular because of their efficiency, high on-time performance. Another solution to removing junctions is to install a flying junction, where tracks are grade separation, so one track passes over/under one another. Rail terminology Interlocking Railway town Double junction Railroad switch
Amu Darya
The Amu Darya called the Amu or Amo River, known by its Latin name Oxus, is a major river in Central Asia. It is formed by the junction of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, in the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve on the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, flows from there north-westwards into the southern remnants of the Aral Sea. In ancient times, the river was regarded as the boundary between Greater Turan. Persian: آمودریا, translit. Âmudaryâ. Ôxos). In classical antiquity, the river was known as the Ōxus in Latin and Ὦξος in Greek — a clear derivative of Vakhsh, the name of the largest tributary of the river. In Vedic Sanskrit, the river is referred to as Vakṣu; the Brahmanda Purana refers to the river as Chaksu. The Avestan texts too refer to the River as Yakhsha/Vakhsha. In Middle Persian sources of the Sassanid period the river is known as Wehrōd; the name Amu is said to have come from the medieval city of Āmul, in modern Turkmenistan, with Darya being the Persian word for "river". Medieval Arabic and Islamic sources call the river Jayhoun, derived from Gihon, the biblical name for one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden.
Western travelers in the 19th century mentioned that one of the names by which the river was known in Afghanistan was Gozan, that this name was used by Greek, Chinese, Persian and Afghan historians. However, this name is no longer used. "Hara and to the river of Gozan...""the Gozan River is the River Balkh, i.e. the Oxus or the Amu Darya...""... and were brought into Halah, Habor, Hara, to the river Gozan..." The river's total length is 2,400 kilometres and its drainage basin totals 534,739 square kilometres in area, providing a mean discharge of around 97.4 cubic kilometres of water per year. The river is navigable for over 1,450 kilometres. All of the water comes from the high mountains in the south where annual precipitation can be over 1,000 mm. Before large-scale irrigation began, high summer evaporation meant that not all of this discharge reached the Aral Sea – though there is some evidence the large Pamir glaciers provided enough melt water for the Aral to overflow during the 13th and 14th centuries.
Since the end of the 19th century there have been four different claimants as the true source of the Oxus: The Pamir River, which emerges from Lake Zorkul in the Pamir Mountains, flows west to Qila-e Panja, where it joins the Wakhan River to form the Panj River. The Sarhad or Little Pamir River flowing down the Little Pamir in the High Wakhan Lake Chamaktin, which discharges to the east into the Aksu River, which in turn becomes the Murghab and Bartang rivers, which joins the Panj Oxus branch 350 kilometres downstream at Roshan Vomar in Tajikistan. An ice cave at the end of the Wakhjir valley, in the Wakhan Corridor, in the Pamir Mountains, near the border with Pakistan. A glacier joins the Pamir River about 50 kilometres downstream. Bill Colegrave's expedition to Wakhan in 2007 found that both claimants 2 and 3 had the same source, the Chelab stream, which bifurcates on the watershed of the Little Pamir, half flowing into Lake Chamaktin and half into the parent stream of the Little Pamir/Sarhad River.
Therefore, the Chelab stream may be properly considered the true source or parent stream of the Oxus. The Panj River forms the border of Tajikistan, it flows west to Ishkashim where it turns north and north-west through the Pamirs passing the Tajikistan–Afghanistan Friendship Bridge. It subsequently forms the border of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for about 200 kilometres, passing Termez and the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge, it delineates the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for another 100 kilometres before it flows into Turkmenistan at Atamurat. It flows across Turkmenistan south to north, passing Türkmenabat, forms the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from Halkabat, it is split by the Tuyamuyun Hydro Complex into many waterways that used to form the river delta joining the Aral Sea, passing Urgench, Daşoguz, other cities, but it does not reach what is left of the sea any more and is lost in the desert. Use of water from the Amu Darya for irrigation has been a major contributing factor to the shrinking of the Aral Sea since the late 1950s.
Historical records state that in different periods, the river flowed into the Aral Sea, into the Caspian Sea, or both, similar to the Syr Darya. The 534,769 square kilometres of the Amu Darya drainage basin include most of Tajikistan, the southwest corner of Kyrgyzstan, the northeast corner of Afghanistan, a narrow portion of eastern Turkmenistan and the western half of Uzbekistan. Part of the Amu Darya basin divide in Tajikistan forms that country's border with China and Pakistan. About 61% of the drainage lies within Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, while 39% is in Afghanistan; the abundant water flowing in the Amu Darya comes entirely from glaci
Turkmenistan
