The Ulungur River / Urungu River or Urungu ( mn, Өрөнгө гол, translit=Öröngö Gol, zh, c=乌伦古河, p=Wūlúngǔ hé), in its upper reaches in Mongolia known as the Bulgan River ( mn, Булган гол), is a river of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

. It rises in the

Altai Mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central Asia, Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob River, Ob have their headwaters. The m ...

in western Mongolia, flows south into China's

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

(

Altay Prefecture Altay Prefecture is located in Northern Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. It has an area of and a population of 561,667 (2000). It is a part of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. At the 2000 census, Altay was the only major subdivision of Ili ...

), where it turns north-west to empty into the Ulungur Lake. It is about 700 km long. The Irtysh–Karamay Canal crosses the Ulungur River at , on an aqueduct.

Geological history

In the early

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

, the Ulungur (as well as the upper Irtysh) flowed into the

Dzungarian Basin The Junggar Basin () is one of the largest sedimentary basins in Northwest China. It is located in Xinjiang, and enclosed by the Tarbagatai Mountains of Kazakhstan in the northwest, the Altai Mountains of Mongolia in the northeast, and the Tian Sh ...

, terminating in a large lake (the "Old Manas Lake") in the region of today's

Lake Manas The Manas Lake () is a salt lake in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. It is located in the western part of the Dzungarian Basin, within the Gurbantünggüt Desert. Administratively, the lake is in Hoboksar Mongol Autonomous County; the clos ...

. Later tectonic movements redirected the Ulungur onto its current course.

Wildlife

The Sino-Mongolian beaver, ''Castor fiber birulai'', is found only in the basin of the Ulungur River. The population is considered endangered. The Bulgan Beaver Nature Reserve (; ) has been established on the Bulgan River (a tributary of the Ulungur River) in Qinggil (Qinghe) County in 1980 to protect the creatures.

Notes

Links

The river Bulgan Gol
Rivers of Xinjiang Rivers of Mongolia {{Mongolia-river-stub