Mountains of Almaty: a brief description

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

Almaty until 1997 was the main city of Kazakhstan, today it is the unofficially recognized southern capital of this state. The wonderful city has retained the qualities that were formed in it during the period when it was the center of the republic. It still has not lost its attractiveness and charm. The mountains of Almaty play a special role in this - an amazing creation of magical nature. They will be discussed in this article.

Almaty: general information

The beautiful city is located at the very foot of the Trans-Ili Alatau - mountains located in the extreme south-eastern part of the republic. This site represents the northern ridge of the great Tien Shan, rising from 600 to 1650 meters above sea level.

In Almaty, the climate is sharply continental, in connection with this, the air temperature changes dramatically even during the day. Several small rivers flow through the territory: Malaya, Bolshaya and their tributaries. Mountains are a special pride and the main natural attraction. Almaty. Their name can be found below.

The former capital is the most important state center (scientific and cultural). The city is also the sports capital of the state. It should be noted that it was in it that the Asian Winter Games were held in 2011. Below we will consider which mountains in Almaty have the highest height.

A little about the mountains of the Northern Tien Shan system

This is the most visited mountain area in Kazakhstan due to the proximity of a large metropolis. Due to the wide opportunities for the development of various types of tourism, this area is called the Ile-Kungei TRS (tourist and recreational system), which includes the following ranges: Zhetysu Alatau and Ile Alatau.

Below is more detailed information, consider the description, the name of the mountains in Almaty.

Kok-Tyube

From the Kazakh language, this name is translated as "Green Hill", and in the mid-1900s it was called "Verigina Gora". Almost at the very foot are residential areas of Almaty. The mountain itself has a height of about 1130 meters above sea level.

Kok-Tyube is not only a natural landmark of the city, but also a place of national importance. The TV tower of Almaty (372 meters) rises on its slopes. To climb the mountain, you can use the car or cable car, built in 1967.

Ile-Alatau

What mountains are popular in Almaty today? Among them is Ile-Alatau. It has steep slopes in the north and gentle slopes in the south. Andthe northern slopes almost along their entire length in front of the plain turn into a kind of hilly “counters”, and the southern slopes gradually descend into the Kazakhstani mountain valleys of Chilik and the Kyrgyz Chon-Kemin.

For Ile-Alatau, a characteristic feature of the relief are deep gorges and long moraine ridges in front of the glaciers, which makes it very difficult to approach them.

Kungei-Alatau

With its northern slopes, Alatau descends into the valley of the river. Chilik (Zhalanash valley), eastern - to the river. Charyn. Its valleys are flat, but the slopes are as steep as on Mount Ile-Alatau. The southern ones descend to the Issyk-Kul lake (Kyrgyzstan).

Feature of Kungei-Alatau is rather high-mountainous alpine plateaus, which abruptly end in the direction of the Chilik River. In the south, the mountains are framed by snow-ice peaks, reaching a height of up to 4000 meters or more.

In conclusion, about other features of the mountains of Almaty

Almaty mountains have their own uniqueness. In the ridges located to the north of the main one (Kungei Alatau), there are peaks that exceed it in height.

For example, in the gorge of Talda there is the peak of Kyz-Ymshek with a height of 4024 m, despite the fact that the height of the main ridge does not exceed 3830 m (in the upper reaches of Talda). And the distance from the top of Kyz-Ymshek to the main ridge is 8 km. Moreover, the main ridge reaches a height of 4000 meters only in the valley of the Karakiya River, which is located 25 kilometers west of Talda.

Almaty mountains also have their own climaticpeculiarities. Quite strong differences are observed in the regional climate features of the Kungei-Alatau and Ile-Alatau ridges.

On the second ridge, most of the precipitation falls on the territory between the Malaya Almatinka and Talgar rivers. The driest is the western zone of Ile-Alatau. This is especially evident in the winter season. All this affects the temperature regime.

In Kungei-Alatau, the amount of winter precipitation (snow) is much less than in the mountains of Ile-Alatau. Summer weather is about the same.