Kokaral (, ''Kökaral'' meaning ''Green Island'') was until 1973 an island in

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 ...

, in the northern part of the

Aral Sea The Aral Sea () was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south, which began shrinking in the 1960s and had largely dried up into desert by the 2010s. It was in the Aktobe and Kyzylorda regions of Kazakhst ...

. It had an area of 273 km² (1960), and its highest point was the 163 meter high hill called Daut. On its northern shore were situated the fishing villages of Kokaral, Avan and Akbasty. Due to the shrinking of the Aral Sea, the island became connected to the mainland in the 1960s at its western end, and became the Kokaral Peninsula. From 1987 on it became connected to the surrounding land also at its eastern end, over the Berg Strait, turning the peninsula into an isthmus separating the

North Aral Sea The North Aral Sea () is the portion of the former Aral Sea that is fed by the Syr Darya River. It split from the South Aral Sea in 1987–1988 as water levels dropped due to river diversion for agriculture. In 1925 a large site containing numer ...

and the

South Aral Sea The South Aral Sea is a lake in the basin of the former Aral Sea that formed in 1987 when that body divided in two, due to diversion of river inflow for agriculture. In 2003, the South Aral Sea itself split into eastern and western basins, the ...

. In 2005 the Dike Kokaral across the Berg Strait was completed. The dike stops water from the North Aral Sea from spilling over into the South Aral Sea, and thus contributes to maintaining and increasing the water level in the northern sea. Since then, the water level of the North Aral Sea has risen.

References

Islands of the Aral Sea Lake islands of Kazakhstan Former islands {{Kazakhstan-geo-stub