Garabogazkol or Kara-Bogaz-Gol is one of the salti­est bod­ies of water on Earth and a very inter­est­ing nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non with great tourist poten­tial. It is a shal­low lagoon or bay with an area of ​​about 18,000 sq. km, locat­ed in the north­west of Turk­menistan in the east­ern part of the Caspi­an Sea.

Turk. “kara” — black, “bogaz” — throat, bay, “gol” — lake. It com­mu­ni­cates with the sea through a nar­row strait of the same name, up to 9 km long, up to 800 m wide and 3–4 m deep. In the strait, there is a con­stant cur­rent from the sea at a speed of 50–100 cm / s. Since 1954, under­ground brines (den­si­ty 1.19–1.27 kg/m3, sul­fate salt con­tent 5–8%) have been extract­ed from a salt hori­zon with a thick­ness of 10–18 m. As a result of sub­se­quent pro­cess­ing of brines, sodi­um sul­fate, bischof­ite, as well as epsomite, sea salt, and med­ical Glauber’s salt are obtained.

Area: 18666,801 sq. km., vol­ume: 1885347 cubic meters, depth avg: 101 m, shore length: 961,87 m, res time: ‑1, ele­va­tion: ‑30