The Anadyr is long and has a basin of. It is frozen from October to late May and has a maximum flow in June with the snowmelt. It is navigable in small boats for about to near Markovo. West of Markovo it is in the Anadyr Highlands and east of Markovo it moves into the Anadyr Lowlands. The drop from Markovo to the sea is less than. It rises at about 67°N latitude and 171°E longitude in the Anadyr Highlands, near the headwaters of the Maly Anyuy, flows southwest receiving the waters of the rivers Yablon and Yeropol, turns east and passes Markvovo and the old site of Anadyrsk, turns north and east and receives the Maynfrom the south, thereby encircling the Lebediny Zakaznik, turns northeast to receive the Belayafrom the north in the Parapol-Belsky Lowlands, then past Ust-Belaya it turns southeast into the Anadyr Lowlands past the Ust-Tanyurer Zakaznik and receives the Tanyurer from the north. At Lake Krasnoye, it turns east and flows into the Onemen Bay of the Anadyr Estuary. If the Onemen Bay is considered part of the river, it also receives the Velikaya from the south and the Kanchalan from the north. Its basin is surrounded by Amguema and Palyavaam, and Penzhina.
History
In 1648 Semyon Dezhnev reached the mouth of the Anadyr after being shipwrecked on the coast. In 1649 he went upriver and built winter quarters at Anadyrsk. For the next 100 years the Anadyr was the main route from the Arctic to the Pacific and Kamchatka. In the 18th century, the Anadyr was described by the polar explorerDmitry Laptev.
Ecology
The country through which it passes is thinly populated, and is dominated by tundra, with a rich variety of plant life. Much of the region has beautiful landscapes, dominated by often spectacular, rugged mountains. For nine months of the year the ground is covered with snow, and the frozen rivers become navigable roads. George Kennan, an American working on the Western Union Telegraph Expedition in the late 1860s, found that dog sled travel on the lower Anadyr was limited by lack of firewood. Reindeer, upon which the local inhabitants subsisted, were once found in considerable numbers, but the domestic reindeer population has collapsed dramatically since the reorganization and privatization of state-run collective farms beginning in 1992. As herds of domestic reindeer have declined, herds of wild caribou have increased. There are ten species of salmon inhabiting the Anadyr river basin. Every year, on the last Sunday in April, there is an ice fishing competition in the frozen estuarine waters of the Anadyr's mouth. This festival is locally known as Korfest. The area is a summering place for a number of migratory birds including brent geese, Eurasian wigeons, and the pintails of California.
