Syr Darya (also known as Syrdarya or Sirdaryo) is a river in Central Asia. It rises in two headstreams in the Tien Shan mountains in Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan and flows for some 2,220 km (1,380 miles) west and north-west through southern Kazakhstan to the Aral Sea.
The name is a relatively recent one in western writings; prior to the early 20th century, the river was known by its ancient Greek name, the Jaxartes.
This river marked the northernmost limit of Alexander the Great's conquests; here in 329 BCE he founded the city Alexander Eschatê (literally, "Alexandria the Furthest") as a permanent garrison. The city is now known as Khujand.
The western end of the valley is defined by the course of the Syrdariya, which runs across the northeastern sector of Uzbekistan from southern Kazakstan into the Qizilqum.
Because of diversion of the Amu Darya and Syrdariya for cotton cultivation and other purposes, what once was the world's fourth largest inland sea has shrunk in the past thirty years to only about one-third of its 1960 volume and less than half its 1960 geographical size.
The desiccation and salinization of the lake have caused extensive storms of salt and dust from the sea's dried bottom, wreaking havoc on the region's agriculture and ecosystems and on the population's health.
The well-developed hydroelectric power generating system utilizes the Syrdariya, Naryn, and Chirchiq rivers, all of which arise to the east in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.
The city is the nucleus of an industrial region that was established near mineral and hydroelectric resources stretching across northeastern Uzbekistan from the Syrdariya in the west to the easternmost point of the nation.
Because Russian emigration caused a shortage of skilled technicians, by 1994 half of the power generating units of the Syrdariya Hydroelectric Power Station had been shut down, and the newly constructed Novoangrenskiy Thermoelectric Power Station could not go on line because there was nobody to operate it.
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