The Yana (p=ˈjanə; ) is a river in Sakha Republic in Russia, located between the Lena to the west and the Indigirka to the east.
The river begins at the confluence of the rivers Sartang and Dulgalakh in the Yana-Oymyakon Highlands. It flows north across the vast Yana-Indigirka Lowland, part of the greater East Siberian Lowland, shared with the Indigirka to the east. As the river flows into the Yana Bay of the Laptev Sea, it forms a huge river delta covering . Яна, Great Soviet Encyclopedia Yarok is a large flat island located east of the main mouths of the Yana.
There are approximately 40,000 lakes in the Yana basin, including both alpine lakes formed from glaciation in the Verkhoyansk Mountains (lowlands were always too dry for glaciation) and overflow lakes on the marshy plains in the north of the basin. The whole Yana basin is under continuous permafrost and most is larch woodland grading to tundra north of about 70°N, though trees extend into suitable microhabitats right to the delta.
Verkhoyansk, Batagay, Ust-Kuyga, and Nizhneyansk are the main ports on the Yana.
The Yana basin is the site of the so-called Pole of Cold of Russia, where the lowest recorded temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are found. In the winter, temperatures in the centre of the basin average as low as and have reached as low as ; in the mountains it is believed that temperatures have reached . Yakuts folklore says that, at such temperatures, if you shout to a friend and they cannot hear you, it is because the words have frozen in the air. However, when spring comes the words "thaw" and one can hear everything that was said months ago.
In 1633–38 Ilya Perfilyev and Ivan Rebrov sailed down the Lena and east along the Arctic coast to the mouth of the Yana and reached the Indigirka River estuary. In 1636–42 Elisei Buza followed essentially the same route. In 1638–40, Poznik Ivanov ascended a tributary of the lower Lena, crossed the Verkhoyansk Range to the upper Yana and then crossed the Chersky Range to the Indigirka.
In 1892–1894 Baron Eduard Von Toll, accompanied by expedition leader Alexander von Bunge, carried out geological surveys in the basin of the Yana (among other Far-eastern Siberian rivers) on behalf of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences. During one year and two days the expedition covered , of which were up rivers, carrying out geodesic surveys en route.
Tributaries
History
See also
General References
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