The Ryn Desert or Ryn-Peski Desert (, ''Naryn-Qūmy''; ) is a desert in western

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 ...

and

Astrakhan Oblast Astrakhan Oblast (; ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast) located in southern Russia. Its administrative center is the city of Astrakhan. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 1,010,073. Geography Astrakhan's southern border is the ...

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 ...

Geography

It is located north of 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, ...

and southeast of the

Volga Upland The Volga Upland, also known as the Volga Uplands, Volga Hills, or Volga Plateau (), is a vast region of the East European Plain in the European part of Russia that lies west of the Volga River and east of the Central Russian Upland. The uplan ...

. The borders of the desert are very loosely defined. Some maps show the desert almost entirely within the Caspian Depression, stretching almost to the coast of the Caspian Sea, while others show it north of the depression. It lies west of the

Ural River The Ural, also known as the Yaik , is a river flowing through Russia and Kazakhstan in the continental border between Europe and Asia. It originates in the southern Ural Mountains and discharges into the Caspian Sea. At , it is the third-longes ...

between 46° N and 49° N latitude, and 48° E to 52° E longitude. Many small towns are scattered throughout the Ryn Desert, and population density is between 1 and 15 people per square mile. Aralsor lake lies at the northern edge.

Climate

The desert lies in a semi-arid climate zone, and receives very little rainfall. Temperatures can reach extreme highs of during summer and in winter they can drop to a low of . High winds sweep across the desert, and in 2001 a dust storm in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

was determined as originating in the Ryn Desert. A study of long-range dust transportation to the Baltic Sea region—by analyzing dust pollution in

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

, showed that aerosol concentrations there were influenced more by the Ryn Desert region than the

Sahara Desert The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

.''International Journal of Environment and Pollution'', 2004 - Vol. 22, No.1/2 pp. 72 – 86. ISSN 0957-4352

References

*DK World Atlas, Millennium Edition, pgs. xxv, xxix, 258
Russia’s Climate and Geography
History Today {{Deserts Deserts of Central Asia Deserts of Kazakhstan Deserts of Russia

Geography

Climate

See also

References