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Zarafshon (river)

Zarafshon
The Zarafshon in Ayni District, Tajikistan
The Zarafshon in the Amu Darya basin
Mouth
Location
Country	Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
Physical characteristics
Source	Zeravshan Glacier
• coordinates	39°30′N 70°35′E / 39.500°N 70.583°E / 39.500; 70.583
Mouth	Qorakoʻl oasis
• coordinates	39°32′52″N 63°52′08″E / 39.5477°N 63.869°E / 39.5477; 63.869
Length	877 km (545 mi)
Basin size	17,700 km2 (6,800 sq mi)
Basin features
Cities	Panjakent, Samarkand, Bukhara
Tributaries
• left	Fan Darya, Kshtut, Magiyan

The Zarafshon^[2][a][b] (Uzbek & Tajik: Зарафшон, Romanized: Zarafshon) is a river in Tajikistan and UzbekistaninCentral Asia. Its name, "spreader of gold" in Persian, refers to the presence of gold-bearing sands in the upper reaches of the river. To the ancient Greeks it was known as the Polytimetus.^[3] It was also formerly known as Sughd River. The river is 877 kilometres (545 mi) long and has a basin area of 17,700 square kilometres (6,800 sq mi).^[4]

It rises at the Zeravshan Glacier, close to where the Turkestan Range and the Zeravshan Range of the Pamir-Alay mountains meet, in Tajikistan. In its upper course, upstream from its confluence with the Fan Darya, it is also called Matcha.^[5] It flows due west for some 300 kilometres (190 mi), passing Panjakent before entering Uzbekistanat39°32′N 67°27′E / 39.533°N 67.450°E / 39.533; 67.450, where it turns west-to-north-west, flowing past the legendary city of Samarkand, where it feeds the Dargom Canal, which is entirely dependent on the oasis thus created, until it bends left again to the west north of Navoiy and further to the south-west, passing Bukhara before it is lost in the desert beyond the city of Qorakoʻl (Karakul), not quite reaching the Amu Darya, of which it was formerly a tributary.

• Zarafshon, a city in Uzbekistan's Navoiy Region, called "the gold capital of Uzbekistan".
• Zarafshan (disambiguation)
• Zarafshan Bridge

^  Smith, William, ed. (1857). "Oxia Palus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. p. 505.

• Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Zerafshan" . Encyclopedia Americana.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zeravshan River.

• В.В. Бартольд『К Истории Орошения в Туркестане』(Collected Works, Vol.3) (Москва) 1965
• V.V. Barthold "Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion" (London) 1968
• Robert Lewis "Early Irrigation in West Turkestan" Annals of the Association of American Geographers Vol.56 No..3 (Sept. 1966) pp467–491
• Edgar Knobloch "Beyond the Oxus" (London) 1972