The Ob River originates from the confluence of mountain streamsBiya and Katun, near the southern outskirts of Russia, near the village of Fominskoye - a suburb of Biysk, Altai Territory. It is an artery of Western Siberia and carries its waters in such a country as Russia.
Where does the river Ob come from?This place is marked on maps as the northern latitude is 52.5 degrees and the eastern longitude is 85 degrees. The Ob flows through the territories of five regions, crossing the West Siberian Plain from the southeast to the north. The mouth of the river is considered to be the 8,000-km-long Ob Bay, the Gulf of the Kara Sea. The place where the Ob river flows is beyond the northern polar circle. It is marked by coordinates at 66.5 degrees north latitude and 69 degrees east longitude.
According to the location of the mouth there is no disagreement.Everyone knows where the river flows into. Obi is credited with various data on its length. Some scientists summarize the length of the actual riverbed with the length of its left tributary of the Irtysh. It turns out a very impressive distance - 5140 km. Others suggest the length of the Ob River to be counted from the sources of the Katun as a longer river (688 km) than Biya (301 km), and receive a different meaning. But one can not belittle the importance of the independent and unique watercourses of the planet - the Irtysh and the Katun. In addition, the Irtysh mostly belongs to Kazakhstan. It will be correct to consider the length of the watercourse to be 3,650 km - from the confluence of Katun with Biya and up to Obskaya Bay, where the Ob river flows into. The same data are given in the State Water Register. There, too, a description of the location where the Ob River flows: Obskaya Bay of the Kara Sea entering the basin of the Arctic Ocean.
The Obsky catchment area is withoutsmall 3 million square meters. km. From this impressive territory, which is the first in importance among Russian rivers, a huge amount of runoff of surface waters is formed. To Ob Bay, where the Ob flows, 357 cu. km of river water.
The average annual consumption (the volume of water in the cube.m / s) is fixed by long-term observations at gauging stations: 1470 - near the city of Barnaul (upper reaches), 12 300 - near the town of Salekhard, near the Ob Bay, where the Ob River flows. The maximum water flow of the stream (during floods) recorded at the gauging stations is approximately: Barnaul - 9690, Salekhard - 42 800 (cubic m / s).
More than 161 thousand creeks, small, medium and largerivers carry their waters to the Ob. The total length of the tributaries is 740 thousand km. Most of them (94%) are small rivers (not more than 10 km long). Large tributaries longer than 1000 km: Irtysh, Vasyugan and Bolshoy Yugan - they flow from the left bank; Chulym and Ket are right-bank ones.
The depth of the Ob is from 2-6 m in the beginning, nearBiysk, reaches up to 25 m near the city of Novosibirsk (near the HPP), decreases to 8 m near the mouth of the Tom and again increases to 15 m in the upper reaches of the Ob Bay, where the river flows. The Ob are characterized by small slopes of the terrain: from 4.5 cm at the beginning to 1.5 cm (per 1 km of length) in the lower reaches of the current. The width of the floodplain varies. It is 5 km at the beginning and 50 km in the Ob Bay area, where the river flows. Obi is characterized by the features of a flat river with a flood of spring high water and autumn floods.
Since ancient times, people have settled along the banks of rivers.Did not stay aside and the Mother-Ob - near her a lot of settlements. We will name the largest in terms of population. At the beginning of the river stands Biysk, founded in 1709, with a population of 200 thousand people. Then - Barnaul, the center of the Altai Territory, was established in 1730, the population - more than 600 thousand people. Novosibirsk - the main city of the Siberian Federal District, was founded in 1893, it is inhabited by more than 1.5 million people. The Tomsk region is the port of Kolpashevo (1938, 23 thousand people). Cities of oilmen of the Khanty-Mansiysk District with a population of more than 300 thousand people. in each - Nizhnevartovsk (1908) and Surgut (1594). The center of the Yamal-Nenets Okrug - Salekhard (1595, 50 thousand people) is located on the right bank of the Ob River. Opposite him on the left bank is located the city of Labytnangi (1900, 26 thousand people).
Among the Russian watercourses, the great river Ob, in its main characteristics, occupies:
