Amu Darya River

The Amu Darya river is the longest river in central Asia and spans a length of two thousand four hundred kilometres. The Amu Darya originates in the Pamir mountains and its basin can be found in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Over half of the rivers length is navigable by boat and in its past the river used to flow into the Caspian sea and the Aral sea but nowadays it does not flow into any sea and is lost into the desert.

There is alot of history behind the Amu Darya river. In years gone by the river was called Oxus, but even more interestingly the river has been known as Jayhoun which is believed to originate from the name Gihon which is the name of one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden according to the bible.

Since the late 1950's the Aral sea has been shrinking and this is mainly because of the amount of water used from the Amu Darya for irrigation purposes, this is also the reason why the river does not have a sea outlet and is lost to the desert.