The Kazakhstan–Kyrgyzstan border is and runs from the

tripoint A tripoint, trijunction, triple point, or tri-border area is a geographical point at which the boundaries of three countries or subnational entities meet. There are 175 international tripoints as of 2020. Nearly half are situated in rivers, l ...

with

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

to the tripoint with China. Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, is situated just 16 km (10m) to the south of this boundary, and Almaty (Kazakhstan's largest city and former capital) is situated just to the north of it.

Description

The border starts in the west at the tripoint with Uzbekistan in the

Ugam Range Ugam Range ( kk, Өгем жотасы, ''Ógem jotasy''; uz, Ugom tizmasi) is a mountain range in South Kazakhstan Region of Kazakhstan and Tashkent Region in Uzbekistan. It is part of Western Tian Shan. The range runs from northeast to southwes ...

and then proceeds in a north-eastwards direction, past Taraz and along the

Kyrgyz Ala-Too The Kyrgyz Ala-Too ( ky, Кыргыз Ала-Тоосу, Kyrgyz Ala-Toosu, ; kk, Қырғыз Алатауы, Qyrǵyz Alataýy; zh, 吉尔吉斯阿拉套) also known as Kyrgyz Alatau, Kyrgyz Range, and Alexander Range (until 1933) is a large ra ...

mountains. The border then traces a rough arc around Kara-Balta, before following the

Chu river The Chu (Shu or Chüy) ( kk, Шу, Shu, شۋ; ky, Чүй, Chüy, چۉي; dng, Чў, Chwu (from , ''Chǔ''); russian: Чу, Chu) is a river in Northern Kyrgyzstan and Southern Kazakhstan. Of its total length of ,Bishkek and

Tokmok Tokmok ( ky, Токмок, lit=hammer; russian: Токмак, Tokmak) is a city in the Chüy Valley, northern Kyrgyzstan, east of the country's capital of Bishkek, with a population of 71,443 in 2021. Its elevation is 816 m above sea level. Fro ...

. Leaving the Chu near the town of Kara-Bulak, the border then proceeds eastwards across the Küngöy Ala-Too Range, north of lake

Issyk-Kul Issyk-Kul (also Ysyk-Köl, ky, Ысык-Көл, lit=warm lake, translit=Ysyk-Köl, , zh, 伊塞克湖) is an endorheic lake (i.e., without outflow) in the Northern Tian Shan mountains in Eastern Kyrgyzstan. It is the seventh-deepest lake i ...

, to the tripoint with China. Kazakhstan's

Taraz Taraz ( kz, Тараз, تاراز, translit=Taraz ; known to Europeans as Talas) is a city and the administrative center of Jambyl Region in Kazakhstan, located on the Talas (Taraz) River in the south of the country near the border with Kyrgyzs ...

to Aktobe railway crosses through Kyrgyzstan briefly, a legacy of the Soviet era where infrastructure was built without regard to what were then internal boundaries.

History

Russia had conquered

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

in the 19th century, by annexing the formerly independent Khanates of Kokand and Khiva and the Emirate of Bukhara. After the Communists took power in 1917 and created the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

it was decided to divide Central Asia into ethnically-based republics in a process known as National Territorial Delimitation (or NTD). This was in line with Communist theory that

nationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

was a necessary step on the path towards an eventually communist society, and

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

's definition of a nation as being ''“a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture”''. The NTD is commonly portrayed as being nothing more than a cynical exercise in

divide and rule Divide and rule policy ( la, divide et impera), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power divisively. Historically, this strategy was used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their ter ...

, a deliberately Machiavellian attempt by Stalin to maintain Soviet hegemony over the region by artificially dividing its inhabitants into separate nations and with borders deliberately drawn so as to leave minorities within each state. The charge is so common as to have become almost the conventional wisdom within mainstream journalistic coverage of Central Asia, with Stalin himself often the one drawing the borders, see for example Stourton, E. in The Guardian, 2010 ''Kyrgyzstan: Stalin's deadly legacy''; Zeihan, P. for Stratfor, 2010 ''The Kyrgyzstan Crisis and the Russian Dilemma''; The Economist, 2010 ''Kyrgyzstan - Stalin's Harvest''; Pillalamarri, A in the Diplomat, 2016, ''The Tajik Tragedy of Uzbekistan''; Rashid, A in the New York Review of Books, 2010, ''Tajikistan - the Next Jihadi Stronghold?''; Schreck, C. in The National, 2010, ''Stalin at core of Kyrgyzstan carnage'', Though indeed the Soviets were concerned at the possible threat of pan-Turkic nationalism, as expressed for example with the Basmachi movement of the 1920s, closer analysis informed by the primary sources paints a much more nuanced picture than is commonly presented. The Soviets aimed to create ethnically homogeneous republics, however many areas were ethnically-mixed (e.g. the

Ferghana Valley The Fergana Valley (; ; ) in Central Asia lies mainly in eastern Uzbekistan, but also extends into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Divided into three republics of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse and in the ...

) and it often proved difficult to assign a ‘correct’ ethnic label to some peoples (e.g. the mixed Tajik-Uzbek

Sart Sart is a name for the settled inhabitants of Central Asia which has had shifting meanings over the centuries. Origin There are several theories about the origin of the term. It may be derived from the Sanskrit ''sārthavāha'' "merchant, t ...

, or the various Turkmen/Uzbek tribes along the Amu Darya).Bergne, Paul (2007) ''The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic'', IB Taurus & Co Ltd, pg. 44-5 Local national elites strongly argued (and in many cases overstated) their case and the Soviets were often forced to adjudicate between them, further hindered by a lack of expert knowledge and the paucity of accurate or up-to-date ethnographic data on the region. Furthermore, NTD also aimed to create ‘viable’ entities, with economic, geographical, agricultural and infrastructural matters also to be taken into account and frequently trumping those of ethnicity. The attempt to balance these contradictory aims within an overall nationalist framework proved exceedingly difficult and often impossible, resulting in the drawing of often tortuously convoluted borders, multiple enclaves and the unavoidable creation of large minorities who ended up living in the ‘wrong’ republic. Additionally the Soviets never intended for these borders to become international frontiers as they are today. SovietCentralAsia1922

NTD of the area along ethnic lines had been proposed as early as 1920. At this time Central Asia consisted of two Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs) within the

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

: the

Turkestan ASSR The Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (initially, the Turkestan Socialist Federative Republic; 30 April 191827 October 1924) was an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic located in Soviet Central As ...

, created in April 1918 and covering large parts of what are now southern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, as well as Turkmenistan), and the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Kirghiz ASSR, Kirgizistan ASSR on the map), which was created on 26 August 1920 in the territory roughly coinciding with the northern part of today's Kazakhstan (at this time Kazakhs were referred to as ‘Kyrgyz’ and what are now the Kyrgyz were deemed a sub-group of the Kazakhs and referred to as ‘Kara-Kyrgyz’ i.e. mountain-dwelling ‘black-Kyrgyz’). There were also the two separate successor ‘republics’ of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva, which were transformed into the Bukhara and

Khorezm People's Soviet Republic The Khorezm People's Soviet Republic ( uz, Хоразм Халқ Совет Республикаси; rus, Хорезмская Народная Советская Республика, r=Khorezmskaya Narodnaya Sovetskaya Respublika) was the st ...

s following the takeover by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

in 1920. On 25 February 1924 the Politburo and Central Committee of the Soviet Union announced that it would proceed with NTD in Central Asia. The process was to be overseen by a Special Committee of the Central Asian Bureau, with three sub-committees for each of what were deemed to be the main nationalities of the region (Kazakhs, Turkmen and Uzbeks), with work then exceedingly rapidly. There were initial plans to possibly keep the Khorezm and Bukhara PSRs, however it was eventually decided to partition them in April 1924, over the often vocal opposition of their Communist Parties (the Khorezm Communists in particular were reluctant to destroy their PSR and had to be strong-armed into voting for their own dissolution in July of that year). The creation of the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border was hampered by disputes over whether the Kyrgyz (then called ‘Kara-Kirghiz’) were a separate people from the Kazakhs (then called ‘Kirghiz’), or just Kazakhs who happened to be semi-nomadic dwellers of mountainous regions. It was decided that the Kara-Kirghiz (Kyrgyz) were different enough to warrant the creation of an Autonomous Oblast within the

Russia SSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

in October 1924, with borders matching those of modern Kyrgyzstan. In 1925 it was renamed the Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast in May 1925, then became the Kirghiz ASSR in 1926 (not to be confused with the Kirghiz ASSR that was the first name of Kazak ASSR), and finally it became the

Kirghiz SSR The Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (Kirghiz SSR; ky, Кыргыз Советтик Социалисттик Республикасы, Kyrgyz Sovettik Sotsialisttik Respublikasy, ky, Кыргыз ССР, Kyrgyz SSR, russian: Киргизск ...

in 1936. The boundary became an international frontier in 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the independence of its constituent republics. The two countries began work on demarcating their common boundary in the 1990s and 2000s in a spirit of cooperation that contrasts starkly with much of the other ex-Soviet Central Asian states. A final border treaty was signed on 15 December 2001, entering into force in 2008, with the border being demarcated on the ground in the following years.

Border crossings

* Aisha Bibi (KAZ) – Chongkapka (KGZ) (road) * Merke (KAZ) – Kara-Balta (KGZ) (road and rail) * Korday (KAZ) – Lugovoye/Akjol (KGZ) (road) * Khun Chi (KAZ) - Kara-Su (KGZ) (road) * Avtodorozhniy (KAZ) - Kenbulun (KGZ) (road, locals only) * Kegen (KAZ) –

Tüp Tüp ( ky, Түп) or Tyup (russian: Тюп) is a large village in the Issyk-Kul Region of Kyrgyzstan, and the center of the Tüp District. It was established as village Preobrazhenskoye in 1870. Its population was 12,355 in 2021. Tüp is a road ...

(KGZ) (road, summer only) * Almaty (KAZ) –

Chong-Sary-Oy Chong-Sary-Oy ( ky, Чоң-Сары-Ой) is a village in the Issyk-Kul Region of Kyrgyzstan. It is part of the Issyk-Kul District. Its population was 3,328 in 2021. This village marks the road and hiking border crossing between Kyrgyzstan and Kaz ...

(KGZ) (road and hiking via the Ozerny Pass/Pereval Ozernyy)

Settlements near the border

Kazakhstan

* Kasyk *

Korday Korday or Kordoy ( kz, Қордай, translit=Qordai, ; ky, Кордой) is a village in Jambyl Region of Kazakhstan, and the administrative center of that region's Korday District. It has been formerly known under its old Russian name of Geo ...

Kyrgyzstan

* Kök-Say * Amanbayevo * Sheker * Pokrovka * Kyzyl-Adyr * Köpürö-Bazar * Chaldybar, Chuy * Kaindy * Kamyshanovka * Vasil'yevka * Birdik * Ivanovka *

* Kara-Bulak *

History maps

Historical English-language maps of the Kazakh SSR–Kyrgyz SSR border, mid to late 20th century: File:Txu-oclc-6654394-nk-42-3rd-ed.jpg, File:Alma-Ata NK-43 (1948) - panoramio.jpg, File:A-k`o-su NK-44 (1950) - panoramio.jpg,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan border Kazakhstan–Kyrgyzstan relations

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the ea ...

Borders of Kyrgyzstan International borders Internal borders of the Soviet Union