The Fan Darya () is a river located in

Ayni District Ayni District, also ''Aini District'' (; , ''Nohiyayi Aynī''), is a Districts of Tajikistan, district in the southern part of Sughd Region, Tajikistan, straddling the middle course of the river Zeravshan (river), Zeravshan. Its capital is the tow ...

Sughd Region Sughd Province, also referred to as the Sogdia Region, and Leninabad before 2001, is one of the four administrative divisions and one of the three provinces that make up Tajikistan. Centered in the historical Sogdiana, it is located in the north ...

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

. The Fan Darya is long (140 km including its source river Yaghnob), and the area of its

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, ...

is . It is a major left tributary of the Zeravshan.Фандарья

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 ...

The Fan Darya is formed at the confluence of the rivers Yaghnob, which flows west from the Yaghnob Valley, and the Iskander Darya, which has its source in Lake Iskanderkul and flows east. Both the Yaghnob and the Iskander Darya drain the valleys between the Zeravshan Range to the north, the Gissar Range to the south and the Fan Mountains to the west. The Fan Darya flows north, crosses the Zeravshan Range and joins the river Zeravshan near the town of

Ayni Ayni ( Quechua and Aymara; also spelled ''Ayniy'' or ''Aini'') can refer to either the concept of reciprocity or mutualism among people of the Andean mountain communities or the practice of this concept. As a noun, the law of ayni states that ...

. The M34 highway, which connects

Dushanbe Dushanbe is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Tajikistan. , Dushanbe had a population of 1,564,700, with this population being largely Tajiks, Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as St ...

with

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

, follows the whole course of Fan Darya through the gorge to Ayni. The drainage basin of the Fan Darya is confined between the Zeravshan and the Gissar ranges. These ranges are connected in the west by the Fann Mountains, and in the east by the Matcha Mountains. The lakes and rivers lying in this area, including Iskanderkul, drain into the Fan Darya.

References

{{reflist Rivers of Tajikistan