(Turkish “black lake”), ḳarakul , the name of various lakes in Central Asia and of a modern town in the Uzbek SSR.

The best-known lake is that lying at the western extremity of the Zarafs̲h̲ān River in Sog̲h̲dia (modern Uzbekistan), midway between Buk̲h̲ārā and Čārd̲j̲ūy (mediaeval Āmul-i S̲h̲aṭṭ, see āmul . 2). The basin in which it lay was known as the Sāmd̲j̲an basin, see Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 315, and Ibn Ḥawḳal, ed. Kramers, 485, tr. Kramers and Wiet, 466. In Nars̲h̲ak̲h̲ī’s Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Buk̲h̲ārā , ed. Schefer, 17, tr. Frye, 19, the lake is given both the Turkish name of Ḳarā-Köl…