Chara
Chara is a mapped river in the YearMaps hydrographic index. River courses organise settlement, agriculture and frontier-making more durably than any political boundary, and this reach is indexed against the dams, lakes and cities within its catchment.
- Feature Class
- River
- Coordinates
- 59.07°, 119.04°
About Chara
The Chara (Russian: Ча́ра; Yakut: Чаара, Çaara) is a left tributary of the Olyokma in Eastern Siberia, Russia. It is 851 kilometres (529 mi) long, and has a drainage basin of 87,600 square kilometres (33,800 sq mi).
Together with the Olyokma, river Chara gives its name to the Olyokma-Chara Plateau (Олёкмо-Чарское плоскогорье), located to the east of its eastern bank.
Encyclopedic summary adapted from Wikipedia: Chara (river) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Chara in Depth
Course
The Chara begins as an outflow of Bolshoye Leprindo lake in the Kodar Mountains, Stanovoy Highlands in northern Zabaykalsky Krai. It flows through the Chara Basin between the Kodar and Kalar Mountains, passing the Chara Sands, a 37 square kilometres (14 sq mi) area of active sand dunes. It joins the left bank of the Olyokma not far from its mouth in the Lena. The Chara has 103 tributaries over 10 km (6.2 mi) in length. The most important are the Apsat and the Zhuya from the left and the Tokko from the right. The Sen River flows into the left bank of the Chara from the northern end of lake Nichatka.
History
The region is famous for a peculiar mountain where charoite has been mined for decades. This intensely purple mineral, named after the river, is only found here and was discovered in the 1940s when a rail tunnel was constructed. Part of the Russian governmental debt was paid in charoite and slabs of this now expensive ornamental material were stored in basements of houses of the Hungarian capital city, Budapest.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Chara (river) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Chara: Key Facts
| Length | 851 km |
|---|---|
| Average discharge | 639 m³/s |
| Drainage basin | 87,600 km² |
| Source | Kodar Mountains |
| Mouth | Olyokma |
| Drainage system | Lena basin |
| Tributaries | Zhuya, Molbo, Tokko, Apsat River |
Facts from Wikidata Q1074898 (CC0).
Major River Dossiers
Hand-written studies of the great river systems of history.
Connected Reaches
Nearby watercourses in the same drainage network.
Water Bodies in the Catchment
Settlements Along the Reach
Hydraulic Infrastructure Nearby
Surrounding Terrain
Chara: Quick Answers
- Where is Chara?
- Chara is located in Russia, at 59.0727° N, 119.0365° E.
- Are there dams on the Chara?
- No dam on the Chara is recorded in the YearMaps dam index, which covers major structures only.