Chu (river)
The Chu (Shu or Chuy) (Kazakh: Шу, Shý, شۋ; Kyrgyz: Чүй, Çüy, چۉي; Dungan: Чў, Çw (from 楚, Chǔ); Russian: Чу) is a river in Northern Kyrgyzstan and Southern Kazakhstan. Of its total length of 1,067 kilometres (663 mi),[1] the first 115 kilometres are in Kyrgyzstan, then for 221 kilometres the river is the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and the last 731 kilometres are in Kazakhstan. It is one of the longest rivers in Kyrgyzstan and in Kazakhstan. It has a drainage basin of 62,500 square kilometres (24,100 sq mi).[1]
The Chuy Region, the northernmost and most populous administrative region of Kyrgyzstan, is named after the river; so are Chuy Avenue, the main street of Bishkek and the city of Shu in Kazakhstan’s Jambyl Region.
The Chu is formed by the confluence of the rivers Joon Aryk and Kochkor,[1] in the Kochkor District of the Naryn Region. After approaching within a few kilometres of Lake Issyk-Kul (near Balykchy), without either flowing into the lake or draining it, it turns towards the northwest. In the 1950s an old riverbed called Ketmaldy (also Buugan) linked the Chu River and Issyk Kul. During floods part of Chu water would reach the lake, but such outflow has not been seen since the construction of the Orto-Tokoy Reservoir. After passing through the narrow Boom Gorge (Russian: Боомское ущелье, Boomskoye ushchelye), the river enters the comparatively flat Chuy Valley, within which lie the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek and the Kazakh city of Shu. Much of the Chu’s water is diverted into a network of canals, such as the Great Chüy Canal, to irrigate the fertile black soils of the Chuy Valley for farming, on both the Kyrgyz and Kazakh sides of the river.
As the Chu flows through the Chuy Valley, it forms the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan for more than a hundred kilometres, but then it leaves Kyrgyzstan and flows into Kazakhstan, where, like many other rivers and streams that drain Northern Kyrgyzstan it eventually disappears in the steppe, short of reaching the Syr Darya, although it has sometimes reached that river in wet years.
