The Chona (; , ''Çuona'') is a river in the
Sakha Republic
Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia, and the largest federal subject of Russia by area. It is located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of one million ...
(Yakutia) and
Irkutsk Oblast
Irkutsk Oblast (; ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara River, Angara, Lena River, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers. The administrative center is ...
,
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
. It is a right hand tributary of the
Vilyuy
The Vilyuy ( rus, Вилю́й, p=vʲɪˈlʲʉj; , ''Bülüü'', ) is a river in Russia, the longest tributary of the Lena (river), Lena. About long, it flows mostly within the Sakha Republic. Its basin covers about .
History
The river is first ...
, and is long, with a
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...
of .
The
Russian Geographical Society
The Russian Geographical Society (), or RGO, is a learned society based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It promotes geography, exploration and nature protection with research programs in fields including oceanography, ethnography, ecology and stati ...
organized an expedition in 1853–55 to survey the
orography
Orography is the study of the topographic relief of mountains, and can more broadly include hills, and any part of a region's elevated terrain. Orography (also known as ''oreography'', ''orology,'' or ''oreology'') falls within the broader disci ...
, geology and population of the
Vilyuy
The Vilyuy ( rus, Вилю́й, p=vʲɪˈlʲʉj; , ''Bülüü'', ) is a river in Russia, the longest tributary of the Lena (river), Lena. About long, it flows mostly within the Sakha Republic. Its basin covers about .
History
The river is first ...
and Chona basins.
Course
The river begins in the
Lena Plateau
The Lena Plateau, also known as Prilensky Plateau (; ), is one of the great plateaus of Siberia. Administratively it is mostly within the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), with a small sector in the Irkutsk Oblast, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia. T ...
, part of the
Central Siberian Plateau
The Central Siberian Plateau (; ) is a vast mountainous area in Siberia, one of the Great Russian Regions.
Geography
The plateau occupies a great part of central Siberia between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. It is located in the Siberian Plat ...
, at an elevation of . It flows roughly northeastwards forming rapids which make the river not navigable. The lowest of its course were flooded by the Vilyuy Reservoir after the
Vilyuy Dam
The Vilyuy Dam (; ) is a large dam and hydroelectric power station on the Vilyuy River in Chernyshevsky, Mirninsky District, Sakha Republic (Yakutia), Russia. The dam was built between 1964 and 1967 to provide power for diamond mines in the area. ...
was built in 1967. The river freezes between October and late May.
[Chona — ]Great Soviet Encyclopedia
The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...
in 30 vols. / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov
Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov (born Alexander Michael Prochoroff, ; 11 July 1916 – 8 January 2002) was an Australian-born Russian physicist and researcher on lasers and masers, in the former Soviet Union. He shared the Nobel Prize in Ph ...
- 3rd ed. - M, 1969-1978.
The main tributaries of the Chona are the long
Vakunayka
The Vakunayka (; ) is a river in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. It is a right hand tributary of the Chona, and is long, with a drainage basin of .
There are no permanent settlements by the Vakunayka. The Russian Geograp ...
and the long
Ichoda on the right, and the long
Dekinde, the long
Delinde and the long
Markhaya on the left. There are no permanent settlements by the Chona.
See also
*
List of rivers of Russia
Russia can be divided into a European and an Asian part. The dividing line is generally considered to be the Ural Mountains. The European part is drained into the Arctic Ocean, Baltic Sea, Black Sea, and Caspian Sea. The Asian part is drained i ...
References
External links
*{{Commons category inline
Geography - Yakutia Organized
Rivers of Irkutsk Oblast
Rivers of the Sakha Republic