The Ustyurt Plateau, also spelled Ust-Yurt, Ust-Urt and Usturt ' onMouseout='HidePop("98477")' href="/topics/Turkmen_language">Turkmen

Turkmen language

Turkmen is the national language of Turkmenistan...

: Üstyurt), is a central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

n plateau

Plateau

In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...

 in Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

 and Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

, between the Aral Sea

Aral Sea

The Aral Sea was a lake that lay between Kazakhstan in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south...

 and the Caspian Sea

Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...

. It extends roughly 200,000 km², with an average elevation of 150 meters, and consists primarily of stony desert. The plateau’s semi-nomadic population raises sheep, goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s, and camels.

See also

• Emba River
  Emba River
  The Emba River in west Kazakhstan rises in the Mugodzhar Hills and flows some 400 miles southwest into the Caspian Sea. It flows through the north of the Ust-Urt plateau, and reaches the Caspian by a series of shallow lagoons, which were navigable in the 18th century. The lower course traverses...
  
  
• Transcaspian Region
  Transcaspian Region
  Transcaspian Region , or Transcaspia, was the name used from the second half of the 19th century until 1924 for the section of Russian Empire to the east of the Caspian Sea, bounded to the south by Iran's Khorasan Province and Afghanistan, to the north by the former Russian province of Uralsk, and...