a lake in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, east of the Caspian Sea, formerly the fourth largest lake in the world: shallow and saline, now badly polluted; use of its source waters for irrigation led to a loss of over 50% of its area between 1967 and 1997, after which the reduction began to be slowed. Area originally (to 1960) about 68 000 sq km (26 400 sq miles); water area reduced by 2004 to about 17 158 sq km (6625 sq miles) and the lake divided into sections

inland body of salt water in SW Asia, east of the Caspian Sea: slowly decreasing in area, partly from overuse for irrigation: c. 15,500 sq mi (40,145 sq km)