| Geography and Climate |
Uzbekistan is a landlocked country, located in Central Asia, north of Afghanistan. Area - comparative: slightly larger than California. Total land boundary is 6,221 km, border countries are Afghanistan 137 km, Kazakhstan 2,203 km, Kyrgyzstan 1,099 km, Tajikistan 1,161 km, Turkmenistan 1,621 km.
Climate in Uzbekistan are long hot summers, mild winters; semiarid grassland in east, mostly midlatitude desert. Terrain consists of mostly flat-to-rolling sandy desert with dunes; broad, flat intensely irrigated river valleys along course of Amu Darya, Sirdaryo, and Zarafshon; Fergana Valley in east surrounded by mountainous Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan; shrinking Aral Sea in west.
Elevation extreme has the lowest point in Sariqarnish Kuli -12 m and highest point in Adelunga Toghi 4,301 m. Natural resources are natural gas, petroleum, coal, gold, uranium, silver, copper, lead and zinc, tungsten, molybdenum. Land use: arable land: 9%, permanent crops: 1%,
permanent pastures: 46%, forests and woodland: 3%, other: 41% (1993 est.). Irrigated land: 40,000 sq km (1993 est.).
Environment—current issues: drying up of the Aral Sea is resulting in growing concentrations of chemical pesticides and natural salts; these substances are then blown from the increasingly exposed lake bed and contribute to desertification; water pollution from industrial wastes and the heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides is the cause of many human health disorders; increasing soil salinization; soil contamination from agricultural chemicals, including DDT.
Geography—note: along with Liechtenstein, one of the only two doubly landlocked countries in the world.
Ref. Anonymous, 1999 |
