Aral Sea

American  

[ar-uhl, uh-rahl] / ˈær əl, ʌˈrɑl /

noun

1. an inland sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, E of the Caspian Sea. 26,166 sq. mi. (67,770 sq. km).

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Aral Sea British  

/ ˈærəl /

noun

1. Also called: Lake Aral.  a lake in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, east of the Caspian Sea, formerly the fourth largest lake in the world: shallow and saline, now badly polluted; use of its source waters for irrigation led to a loss of over 50% of its area between 1967 and 1997, after which the reduction began to be slowed. Area originally (to 1960) about 68 000 sq km (26 400 sq miles); water area reduced by 2004 to about 17 158 sq km (6625 sq miles) and the lake divided into sections

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Example Sentences

The United Nations Development Program calls the destruction of the Aral Sea “the most staggering disaster of the 20th century.”

From Seattle Times • Feb. 7, 2024

“Everyone laughed and said that it would take several million years,” said Shadilov, 73, one of the last surviving former fishermen of the Aral Sea.

From Seattle Times • Dec. 5, 2023

She met with people on the desiccated shores of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and saw fishing boats abandoned on the dry bed of what was once Bolivia’s Lake Poopó.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 22, 2023

Under Cambyses II, the Persian Empire stretched from the edges of India to the shores of the Aral Sea, the Aegean coast of Anatolia, and the Nile River and included everything in between.

From Textbooks • Apr. 19, 2023

Moscow's push for ever-increasing amounts of cotton had   included massive irrigation projects which caused extensive environmental   damage to the Aral Sea and rivers of the republic.

From The 1993 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency