Natural Monument «Singing barchans»
Interesting facts
- Sound-producing dunes are rare worldwide: booming sand is known from only about 35 desert locations, and its rumble can reach roughly 105 decibels.
- The dune's voice drew scientific attention early: in 1962 the Leningrad physicist V. Arabadzhi carried out a series of observations of its sound.
- In Kazakh the dune is also called Änshi Qum, which means simply 'singing sand'.
- Only dry sand sings here; once the grains are damp, the moving sand falls silent.
- Measurements of the dune differ between sources, with some giving a length of up to 3 km and a height of about 150 metres.
- The Singing Dune was among the nominees in the international New7Wonders of Nature campaign.
- According to old folk beliefs about singing sands, the sound came from desert spirits, underground rivers or the bells of cities buried beneath the dunes.
- Altyn-Emel National Park, which protects the dune, covers about 4,600 square kilometres between the Ili River and the Aktau mountains.
- The same park holds the Besshatyr burial ground, a group of Iron Age Saka mounds where gold adornments, weapons and armour have been found.
- Not far from the dune rise the Aktau mountains, nicknamed the lunar mountains because of their unusual colours.
Why it is worth it
In the steppe of south-eastern Kazakhstan, between two bare ridges called the Greater and Lesser Kalkan, a lone mountain of pale sand rises more than a hundred metres above the plain and stretches for well over a kilometre. In dry weather, when wind or footsteps set its surface sliding, the dune gives off a deep, sustained hum that observers have compared to an organ — the reason it is known as the Singing Dune, in Kazakh Aigai Kum. It stands within Altyn-Emel National Park, created in 1996 to protect the desert, mountain and archaeological landscapes of the Ili valley.
The dune owes its existence to the wind. Gusts sweeping through this part of the Ili valley lift sand from the river's shoals and carry it north until they meet the angled walls of the two Kalkan ridges, where they slacken and drop their load. Over thousands of years this trap has built a crescent-shaped barchan that, unlike most dunes, does not wander across the plain but stays in place. Its south-western face is smooth, while the north-eastern side is broken into several gentler crests. The sound comes from grains rubbing against one another as large masses of dry sand move; the more sand in motion, the louder the note, from a faint squeak to a rumble. The physics of singing sand is still debated.
From the crest the view takes in the thin line of the Ili to the south, the low Sogety and Boguty mountains and the snowy Ketmen range beyond, with spurs of the Dzungarian Alatau to the north. Local legends have long tried to explain the voice of the sand: one tells of a tired devil who lay down to rest on his way home and was turned into the dune, groaning whenever someone disturbs him; another says Genghis Khan and his warriors lie buried beneath it.
Getting there
The Singing Dune is in Altyn-Emel National Park, Almaty Region, about 183 km north-east of Almaty, the country's largest city and main air gateway. The nearest settlement of any size is Shelek, about 39 km away in a straight line. The nearest airport by distance is Taldykorgan Airport (TDK), about 140 km away.
On these lists
43.86708, 78.56692per Wikidata