Chuy Valley

The Chuy Valley is a large valley in the northern part of the Tian Shan, spanning northern Kyrgyzstan and southern Kazakhstan. It stretches about 250 kilometers from Boom Gorge in the east to the Muyunkum Desert in the west, covering an area of roughly 32,000 square kilometers between the Kyrgyz Ala-Too mountains on its southern border and the Chu-Ili mountains on its northern edge. The Chu River is the valley's main waterway, and together with warm summers and available irrigation water it makes the valley one of the most fertile and densely populated regions of Kyrgyzstan. The valley also holds mineral deposits of zinc ore, lead and gold along with construction materials, and the 2006 World Drug Report recorded wild cannabis growing across some 400,000 hectares within it.