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Ural River
Ural River
Ural River
Map of the Ural River watershed Origin Mouth Basin countries Length Source elevation Avg. discharge Basin area 400 m³/s 231,000 km² (89,190 mi²) Russia Caspian Sea Russia, Kazakhstan 2,428 km (1,509 mi)
The Ural river as seen from a plane between Uralsk and Atyrau, Kazakhstan. The left side (on the picture) of the river is Asian, the right is European a few miles below Atyrau, where it forms a fine digitate delta at (46°53′N 51°37′E / 46.883°N 51.617°E / 46.883; 51.617).[1] Tributaries, in order going upstream: • Cagan River • Irtek River • Utva River • Ilek River • Bol’saja Chobda • Kindel’a River • Sakmara River • Salmys River • Or River • Suunduk River
The Ural (Russian: Урал, Kazakh: Жайық, Jayıq or Zhayyq), known as Yaik (Russian: Яик) before 1775, is a river flowing through Russia and Kazakhstan. It arises in the southern Ural Mountains and ends at the Caspian Sea. Its total length is 1,511 mi (2,428 km). It forms part of the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia. The Ural arises on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains, flows south through Magnitogorsk, and around the southern end of the Urals, through Orsk where it turns west for about 300 km, to Orenburg, when the Sakmara River joins. From Orenburg it continues west, passing into Kazakhstan, then turning south again at Oral, and meandering through a broad flat plain until it reaches the Caspian
History
In the Middle Ages, the city of Saray-Jük on the lower Ural was an important trade center on the Silk Road. It later became an
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important center for the Golden Horde and the Nogai Horde, After the Russian conquest (late 16th century), the shores of the Ural became home to the Ural Cossacks, one of whose main activities was fishing for the sturgeon and related fishes (including the true sturgeon, starry sturgeon, and beluga) in the Ural River and the Caspian. A great variety of fishing techniques existed, the most famous of them was bagrenye (багренье): spearing hibernating sturgeons in their underwater lairs in December. Another fishing technique was constructing a weir, known as uchug (учуг) across the river, to catch fish going upstream to spawn. While the uchug weirs were also known in the Volga Delta, the bagrenye was thought to be a uniquely Ural technique. The cossacks, known originally as the Yaik Cossacks, disliked the central government’s attempts to impose rules and regulations on them, and on occasions rose in rebellions. After the largest rebellion - the one led by Yemelyan Pugachev - Empress Catherine had them renamed to "Ural Cossacks", and the Yaik River, to the Ural River. The famous Civil War commander Vasily Chapayev is thought to have drowned in the Ural, on September 5, 1919.
Ural River
The "bird’sfoot" ("digitate") delta of the Ural
References
[1] Ural River Delta, Kazakhstan (NASA Earth Observatory)
Gallery
The Ural river in the center of Atyrau, Kazakhstan. The right side (on the picture) of the river is Asian, the left is European
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural_River" Categories: Rivers of Russia, Rivers of Kazakhstan, Rivers of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Rivers of Bashkortostan, Rivers of Orenburg Oblast, International rivers, Volga Federal District geography stubs, Urals Federal District geography stubs This page was last modified on 18 April 2009, at 01:04 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) taxdeductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers
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