Geography
The river begins at the slopes of the Kruglaya Mountain of the Uraltau mountain ridge in South Ural, on the territory of the Uchalinsky District of Bashkortostan. There it has an average width of 60–80 m and flows as a typical mountain river. It then falls into the Yaik Swamp and after exiting it widens up to 5 km. Below Verkhneuralsk, its flow is characteristic of a flatland river; there it enters Chelyabinsk and Orenburg Oblasts. From Magnitogorsk to Orsk its banks are steep and rocky and the bottom has many rifts. After Orsk, the river abruptly turns west and flows through a 45 km long canyon in the Guberlinsk Mountains. After Uralsk, it flows from north to south, through the territory of West Kazakhstan Province and Atyrau Province of Kazakhstan. There, the river widens and has many lakes and ducts. Near the mouth, it splits into the Yaik and Zolotoy distributaries and forms vast wetlands. The Yaik distributary is shallow, with almost no trees on the shores, and is rich in fish; whereas Zolotoy is deeper and is navigable. Ural River has a spectacular tree-like (or “digitate”) shape of the delta (see image). This type of delta forms naturally in the slow rivers which bring much sediments and flow into a quiet sea. In the delta, 13.5 km from the mouth of the Zolotoy distributary lies Shalyga Island having the length of 2.5 km, heights of 1–2 and maximum widths of 0.3 km.
The tributaries, in order going upstream, are Kushum, Derkul, Chagan, Irtek, Utva, Ilek (major, left), Bolshaya Chobda, Kindel, Sakmara (major, right), Salmys, Or (major, left) and Suunduk.
The entire length of the Ural River is considered the Europe-Asia boundary by most authoritative sources. Rarely, the smaller, shorter Emba River is claimed as the continental boundary, but that pushes "Europe" much further into "Central Asian" Kazakhstan. The Ural River bridge is Orenburg is even labeled with permanent monuments carved with the word "Europe" on one side, "Asia" on the other. Regardless, Kazazkstan has some European territory and is at times included in European political and sports organizations
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