Syr Darya

The Syr Darya (ˌsɪər_ˈdɑr.jə, siːɾ dæɾˈjɒː), historically known as the Jaxartes (dZaekˈsɑrti:z, Ἰαξάρτης), is a river in Central Asia. The name, which is Persian, literally means Syr Sea or Syr River. It originates in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan and flows for west and north-west through Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan to the northern remnants of the Aral Sea. It is the northern and eastern of the two main rivers in the endorheic basin of the Aral Sea, the other being the Amu Darya (Jayhun). In the Soviet era, extensive irrigation projects were constructed around both rivers, diverting their water into farmland and causing, during the post-Soviet era, the virtual disappearance of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest lake. The point at which the river flows from Tajikistan into Uzbekistan is, at above sea level, the lowest elevation in Tajikistan. When the Macedonian army of Alexander the Great reached the Jaxartes in 329 BCE, after travelling through Bactria and Sogdia without encountering any opposition, they met with the first instances of native resistance to their presence. In October 329 BC the Macedonians fought the Battle of Jaxartes against the Saka, killing some 1200 combatants including the leader of the nomads. Alexander was forced to retire south to deal with a revolt in Sogdia. Alexander was wounded in the fighting that ensued and the native tribes took to attacking the Macedonian garrisons stationed in their towns. As the revolt against Alexander intensified it spread through Sogdia, plunging it into two years of warfare, the intensity of which surpassed any other conflict of the Anabasis Alexandri. On the shores of the Syr Darya Alexander placed a garrison in the City of Cyrus (Cyropolis in Greek), which he then renamed after himself Alexandria Eschate—"the farthest Alexandria"—in 329 BCE. For most of its history since at least the Muslim conquest of Central Asia in the 7th to 8th centuries CE, the name of this city (in present-day Tajikistan) has been Khujand.