Ust-Yurt Plateau, Kazakhstan

Located in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the Ustyurt is a dry plateau that stretches from the Gulf of Kara-Bogaz-Gol (or Garabogazköl Aylagy) and the Mangyshlak Peninsula in the west to the Amu Darya delta and the Aral Sea in the east. It’s roughly the size of Iceland and South Korea combined and it is characterised by stony, clay, and sandy desert areas. It’s also the former site of a 21 million-year-old sea in the early to middle Cenozoic Era. Flanking many of the dead flat salt pans are chalk escarpments rising to 150m high from the floor. It’s a relatively inhospitable environment for humans. Still, there is plenty of wildlife ranging from hopping jerboa, ground squirrels, tortoises, Egyptian vultures, eagles, long-needled hedgehogs, golden eagles, Karakal lynxes, and the ever-elusive saiga. These Ustyurt Plateau photos are from a 2017 trip to the area where we covered 1,000 km off-road with Aktau-based travel agency Экспедиция +362 (Expedition +362)—If you have your own transport, Yerlan and his team can assist you with any logistics.

If you want to see more Ustyurt Plateau photos and read more about the region’s history and geography, then check out my BBC Travel story. The Mangystau Region is estimated to have 725 million tonnes of recoverable oil reserves across 70+ sites. There are also a small number of refineries operating in the Uzbek Ustyurt too. Fortunately, Kazakhstan’s Ustyurt Nature Reserve and Uzbekistan’s Saigachiy Reserve — which is three times larger — have a degree of protection from the extractive industry. Despite this, the Central Asian and international scientific community are researching how to expand them into a trans-border biosphere reserve across all three countries and eventually secure its long-term future by acquiring a UNESCO World Heritage Site status. To license these images please contact me on info@matthewtraver.com.

Black and white image of desert foreground and a rugged mountain overlooking an empty expanse in background.
White cliffs of the Ustyurt sloping down in to a maroon coloured soil and white salt pan.
A flat mountain top and rocky tower bathed in golden sunset light, with desert in the foreground.
A 100 metre high cliff line shining bright orange in the sunset. Piles of rubble at the bottom of the cliff.
A man wearing a khaki shirt does a handstand and grimaces.
White clouds, blue skies, sandy desert and a long row of chalk cliff line.
A desert explorer crouches down to inspect decayed plant matter in an Ustyurt salt pan.
A sloping escarpment descends towards a desolate Ustyurt salt pan.
A wide view of the remains of a desert hunting trap overlooking a vast sea of desolate, rocky desert in Kazakhstan.
A man in a white shirt walks towards an amphitheatre of rock and a rock arch in the Ustyurt, Kazakhstan.
Sun setting behind the clouds on the edge of a white cliff rimmed desert.
A tiny green plant pokes out of the white, chalky desert earth.
Short, upright slabs of rock on the edge of an Ustyurt escarpment, which once formed an ancient hunting trap.
A 50 metre high arch made of chalk cliff with a man sat at the bottom.
A pure white chalk cliff with ruffled slopes overlooks a sandy, scrubby section of plateau.
Long, white chalk cliffs converge in the distance, overlooking a sandy Kazakhstan desert.
A salt pan in the Ustyurt plateau devoid of any water and beneath big, blue skies.
A dry, seasonal river bed cuts across a stretch of plateau in the Ustyurt of western Kazakhstan.
A flat escarpment leading out to a peninsula overlooking an expansive flat plateau in western Kazakhstan.
Three camel humped rocky mountains sit alone in a remote desert salt pan near Turkmenistan.
Looking down into a white salt desert pan from atop a cliff.
A near full moon in a blue sky hangs over orange and white stratified desert cliffs.
A rock table top mountain with golden cliffs overlooks a desert plateau.
An expanse of scrubby orange and brown desert with short cliffs either side.
An off-road car parked on a dirt track leading up a desert valley.
Chalk white desert mountain tops bathed in sunshine and far in the distance.
Weathered gully and cliff line descending down to a bleached white desert salt pan.
An old Soviet-era survey marker formed out of three tall metal tubes stands in the western Kazakh desert.
A black and white photo of a desert tower half cast in a sunset, with the other side in shadow.
An offroad truck parked beneath limestone cliffs on the edge of a desert.
A view of Ustyurt mountains sat atop chalky white slopes.
Looking down into an immense and inhospitable expanse of Ustyurt desert plateau that stretches into the horizon.
A slab of hand piled stones, which once formed a desert hunting trap, slide off the edge of an escarpment.
Blue sky above, with a white salt pan in the middle and green, scrubby desert landscape in foreground.
A flat plateau of orange and white shattered rock stretches out in front of rocky towers in the Ustyurt.
Black and white photo in Ustyurt showing complex ridges of water-worn chalk cliffs in desert.
Slabs of horizontal rock left behind from a prehistoric hunting pen in the Ustyurt.
A single tower of chalk rock pokes up out of the scrubby desert landscape.
A boulder completely hollowed out by wind erosion sits in a desert.
A wide shot of a chain of three towers with scrubby, flat plateau in the foreground.
A sandy, flat expanse of Ustyurt desert in front of chalk cliffs with water worn slopes.
Dead flat salt pans with desert mountains in distance and sun peering over the horizon.
A fin-like tower of rock looms over a large, sloping cliff line.
A humped, chalk white hill with weathered slopes overlooks a patch of desert.
Wide angle view of three hump-shaped mountains in the middle of a giant, dry, and white salt plan near Turkmenistan.
A chalk arch the size of a building on the edge of a western Kazakhstan desert.
A rocky cliff overlooks an angled slope which leads down towards a Kazakh plateau.
A red, orange, brown, and white coloured cliff stands above limestone desert slopes.
A circular shaped hunting pen formed from slab rock sits on the edge of a cliff.
An expansive view of desert escarpment and flat plateau below.
Small, green bushes poke out of the sand in front of tall, sloping chalk cliffs.
Two rocky towers in the Ustyurt separated by a pass and overlooking weather chalk cliffs.
A table top, orange rock mountain sits on a sloping pile of white chalk in the Kazakh desert.
Dried bushes poking out of stony ground overlook a multicoloured limestone desert mountain in the distance.
A single tower of rock with a steep promontory overlooks the Ustyurt plateau.
Silhouette of a man cartwheeling on a salt pan as the sun is setting.

My photography has been published in the following outlets:

Russia Beyond the Headlines logo.
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Alpinist Magazine's logo.
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Russian Life logo in blue text.
Sidetracked Magazine logo in black and white.
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