Kyzylkum Desert

Red sands and dinosaur bones

Kyzylkum means 'red sand', and it covers half of Uzbekistan! In summer the sand heats up to 70 °C — hot enough to cook an egg. But the desert isn't empty: saxaul, camels, gazelles, tortoises and monitor lizards live here. Most amazing of all: dinosaur bones were found in the Kyzylkum — 90 million years ago this was a sea shore!

The Kyzylkum is a 300,000 km² desert (16th largest in the world) between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, mostly in Uzbekistan. Its sand is reddish from iron oxide. Summers reach +50 °C, winters −30 °C; rainfall is 100 mm a year. Plants: saxaul, calligonum, kandym; animals: goitered gazelle, saiga, desert monitor lizard, sand cat. Cretaceous dinosaurs (90 million years old) — Ulughbegsaurus (2021), Turanoceratops — were found in the Dzharakuduk and Bissekty beds. The Kyzylkum holds Muruntau, the world's largest open-pit gold mine, and the Bukhara gas fields. The Kyzylkum Reserve (1971) protects tugai forests and the Bukhara deer.

Fun facts

• A dinosaur found in the Kyzylkum in 2021 was named Ulughbegsaurus — after Ulugh Beg!
• The Kyzylkum holds Muruntau, the world's largest open-pit gold mine.
• In summer the sand gets so hot that monitor lizards bury themselves during the day.