Charyn Canyon is located along the Charyn River in Kazakhstan, 200 kilometers east of the city of Almaty. The canyon is about 90 kilometers of lenght. It is a part of Charyn National Park in the Almaty region.
The canyon is famous for its impressive colorful mountain formations of various shapes and sizes, that remind the Grand Canyon in America This is a unique natural object with rocks in the form of chapels, towers, animals. They were formed under the influence of weathering of sedimentary rocks.
One part of the canyon is known as the Valley of the Castles for its unusual rock formations. Its length is 3 kilometers and depth is 100 meters. Other parts of the Charyn Canyon have also very intriguing names like Witch Gorge and Ghost Gorge. In addition to the Valley of Castles, Charyn canyon consists of 4 different canyons: Temirlik canyon, Yellow canyon, Red canyon and Bestamak canyon.
On the territory of the canyon, there is a grove of Sogdian ash-tree, a relict species that could survive the era of glaciation. Another similar grove grows only in North America.
Charyn Canyon attracts the attention of visitors with a variety of flora and fauna. The flora is represented by more than 1500 species of plants, and the fauna includes 62 species of mammals, 103 species of birds and 25 species of reptiles.
Charyn canyon can be reached from Almaty by the main road that passes through the villages of Chilik, Baysayt and Kokpek.
