The Emba ( ''Embı'' or ''Jem'', ) in west

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

rises in the

Mugodzhar Hills Mugalzhar (), also known as Mugodzhar Hills or Mugodzhar Range (),
Geonames is a mountain range of moderate height in the Akt ...

and flows across the Sub-Ural Plateau and Caspian Depression into the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...

. It is long, and has 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 .Эмба (река)

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 ...

It flows through the north of the Ust-Urt plateau, and reaches the Caspian by a series of shallow

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...

s, which were navigable in the 18th century. The lower course traverses an area of salt domes and the petroleum-rich Emba fields. It is sometimes regarded as a definition for the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. In its upper course, the Emba is a small river, its valley barely over wide. Lower down, after the waters of the Temir River flow into it, the Emba's valleys widen to almost . The Emba flows in a single channel, only breaking off into little arms in places. But around before it enters the Caspian Sea, it breaks off in places to form several lakes, which are connected to each other through slender channels that only run during flooding. The Emba is a snow-fed river. It freezes over in winter, a process that begins in November and lasts until March.

Oil basin

The oil basin of the Emba lies between the

Mugodzhar Hills Mugalzhar (), also known as Mugodzhar Hills or Mugodzhar Range (),
Geonames is a mountain range of moderate height in the Akt ...

in the east and the

Volga The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

in the west. This area was known since olden days as ''Maily Kiyan'', which means the land blessed with miracle oil. The British merchant Gok mentioned in the mid-17th century that during his travels he came to a spring near the Emba River that spouted oil instead of water. Between 1919 and 1921 the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

s tried to build the Algemba railway and pipeline from Alexandrov Gay, so as to provide a means of conveying the oil from the recently captured oil field to the centre of Russia. However, due to logistical problems, the project failed with substantial loss of life.

Places on the banks of the Emba

* Embi (town) * Zhem (town)

References

Rivers of Kazakhstan Tributaries of the Caspian Sea Caspian Depression {{Kazakhstan-river-stub