The Aral Sea
The Aral Sea (Orol dengizi) in Oq kendi; The name roughly translates as “Sea of Islands”, referring to over 1,100 islands that once dotted its waters; in the Turkic languages “aral” means “island, archipelago”. Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 square kilometres, it has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. It is now only a thin strip at the western edge of the former southern sea.
Photo by Ludo Kuipers, Fri Jun 07, 2013