The Ustyurt or Ust-Yurt (from ; ; ; — flat hill, plateau) is a transboundary clay

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

shared by

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 ...

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

, and

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

. The plateau's semi-nomadic population raises

camel A camel (from and () from Ancient Semitic: ''gāmāl'') is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provid ...

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the ...

s, and

sheep Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...

Geography

The Ustyurt is located between the Dead Kultuk,

Mangyshlak Peninsula Mangyshlak or Mangghyshlaq Peninsula (; ) is a large peninsula located in western Kazakhstan. It borders on the Caspian Sea in the west and with the Buzachi Peninsula, a marshy sub-feature of the main peninsula, in the northeast. The Tyuleniy Ar ...

and Kara-Bogaz-Gol 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, ...

to the west, and 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 ...

Amudarya The Amu Darya ( ),() also shortened to Amu and historically known as the Oxus ( ), is a major river in Central Asia, which flows through Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. Rising in the Pamir Mountains, north of the Hindu Ku ...

Delta and

Sarygamysh Lake Sarygamysh Lake, also Sarykamysh or Sary-Kamysh (, , , ), is the largest lake in Turkmenistan located about midway between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea. A quarter of the lake's area is in Uzbekistan. The Sarykamysh basin and the Sarykamysh de ...

to the east. It extends roughly , with an average altitude of . Its highest point rises to in the south-west. At its northeastern edge it drops steeply to the Aral Sea and the surrounding plain. The Ustyurt Plateau is bounded by steep cliffs called

chink ''Chink'' is an English-language List of ethnic slurs, ethnic slur usually referring to a person of Chinese people, Chinese descent, but also used to insult people with East Asian features. The use of the term describing eyes with epicanthic ...

s nearly from everywhere. To the east, it encompasses the historical western shoreline of the Aral Sea. In the southern region, it extends to the Kunya-Darya alluvial plain and the valley of the

Uzboy The Uzboy (sometimes spelled Uzboj) was a distributary of the Amu Darya river which flowed through the northwestern part of the Karakum Desert of Turkmenistan until the 17th century, when it abruptly dried up, eliminating the agricultural populati ...

, while in the west, it reaches the Karynyaryk depression. To the north, it spans the Karakum sands of the North

and includes the Caspian Depression. ФАУНА НАЗЕМНЫХ ПОЗВОНОЧНЫХ ВОСТОЧНОГО ЧИНКА ПЛАТО УСТЮРТ
/ref> Ustyurt chinks often have multicolored layers, with colors of pale pink, blue, clear white, etc., and can form fancy landscapes.
/ref>

Protected areas

Kazakhstan created the Ustyurt Nature Reserve (223,300 hectares) in July, 1984 in the south of Mangystausky district in Eralievsky region. It preserves rare fauna and flora such as the

Ustyurt Mountain sheep The Ustyurt mountain sheep (''Ovis vignei cycloceros''), often referred to as the Turkmenian mountain sheep, is a subspecies of the urial that inhabits the mountain plateau regions of parts of Central Asia, especially the Ustyurt plateau from wh ...

and the

Saiga antelope The saiga antelope (, ''Saiga tatarica''), or saiga, is a species of antelope which during antiquity inhabited a vast area of the Eurasian steppe, spanning the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the northwest and Caucasus in the southwes ...

. Among its features are Sherkala Mountain and the concretions found in the

Torysh Torysh is a valley close to the village of Shetpe and the mountain Sherkala in Mangystau, Kazakhstan. Also known as "The Valley of Balls", the area features many spherical rock formations which have formed naturally across the landscape in the se ...

('Valley of Balls') near the town of

Shetpe Shetpe (, ''Шетпе'', ''شەتپە'') is a selo and the administrative center of Mangystau District in Mangystau Region in western Kazakhstan. Population: Climate Shetpe has a cold desert climate (Köppen climate classification The Köp ...

References

External links

*
Hundreds of desert kites in the Ustyurt
Nat. Geographic Plateaus of Kazakhstan Landforms of Uzbekistan Plateaus of Asia {{Uzbekistan-geo-stub

Geography

Protected areas

See also

References

External links