Ертіс өзені: Қытай, Қазақстан және Ресейдегі арнасы

River in China, Kazakhstan and Russia

The Irtysh is a river in Russia, China, and Kazakhstan. It is the chief tributary of the Ob and is also the longest tributary river in the world. The river's source lies in the Mongolian Altai in Dzungaria (the northern part of Xinjiang, China) close to the border with Mongolia. The Irtysh's main tributaries include the Tobol, Demyanka and the Ishim. The Ob Irtysh system forms a major drainage basin in Asia, encompassing most of Western Siberia and the Altai Mountains.

From its origins as the Kara Irtysh (Black Irtysh) in the Mongolian Altay mountains in Xinjiang, China, the Irtysh flows northwest through Lake Zaysan in Kazakhstan, meeting the Ishim and Tobol rivers before merging with the Ob near Khanty Mansiysk in western Siberia, Russia after
The name Black Irtysh (Kara Irtysh in Kazakh, or Cherny Irtysh in Russian) is applied by some authors, especially in Russia and Kazakhstan, to the upper course of the river, from its source entering Lake Zaysan. The term White Irtysh, in opposition to the Black Irtysh, was occasionally used in the past to refer to the Irtysh below lake Zaysan; now this usage is largely obsolete.

A number of Mongol and Turkic peoples occupied the river banks for many centuries. In 657, Tang dynasty general Su Dingfang defeated Ashina Helu, qaghan of the Western Turkic Khaganate, at the Battle of Irtysh River, ending the Tang campaign against the Western Turks. Helu's defeat ended the Khaganate, strengthened Tang control of Xinjiang, and led to Tang suzerainty over the western Turks. In the 15th and 16th centuries the lower and middle courses of the Irtysh lay within the Tatar Khanate of Sibir; its capital, Qashliq (also known as Sibir) was located on the Irtysh a few kilometres upstream from the mouth of the Tobol (where today's Tobolsk is situated). The Khanate of Sibir was conquered by the Russians in the 1580s. The Russians started building fortresses and towns next to the sites of former Tatar towns; one of the first Russian towns in Siberia (after Tyumen) was Tobolsk, founded in 1587 at the fall of the Tobol into the Irtysh, downstream from the former Qashliq. Farther east, Tara was founded in 1594, roughly at the border of the taiga belt (to the north) and the steppe to the south. In the 17th century the Dzungar Khanate, formed by the Mongol Oirat people, became Russia's southern neighbor, and controlled the upper Irtysh. As a result of Russia's confrontation with the Dzungars in the Peter the Great's era, the Russians founded the cities of Omsk in 1716, Semipalatinsk in 1718, Ust Kamenogorsk in 1720, and Petropavlovsk in 1752. The Chinese Qing Empire conquered Dzungaria in the 1750s. This prompted an increase in the Russian authorities' attention to their borderland; in 1756, the Orenburg Governor Ivan Neplyuyev even proposed the annexation of the Lake Zaysan region, but this project was forestalled by Chinese successes. Concerns were raised in Russia (1759) about the (theoretical) possibility of a Chinese fleet sailing from Lake Zaysan down the Irtysh and into Western Siberia. A Russian expedition visited Lake Zaysan in 1764, and concluded that such a riverine invasion would not be likely. Nonetheless, a chain of Russian pickets was established on the Bukhtarma River, north of Lake Zaysan. Thus the border between the two empires in the Irtysh basin became roughly delineated, with a (sparse) chain of guard posts on both sides. The situation in the borderlands in the mid 19th century is described in a report by A. Abramof (ru; 1865). Even though the Zaysan region was recognized by both parties as part of the Qing empire, it had been annually used, by fishing expeditions sent by the Siberian Cossack Host. The summer expeditions started in 1803, and in 1822–25 their range was expanded through the entire Lake Zaysan and to the mouth of the Black Irtysh. Through the mid 19th century, the Qing presence on the upper Irtysh was mostly limited to the annual visit of the Qing amban from Chuguchak to one of the Cossacks' fishing stations (Batavski Piket). The border between the Russian and the Qing empires in the Irtysh basin was established along the line fairly similar to China's modern border with Russia and Kazakhstan by the Convention of Peking of 1860. The actual border line pursuant to the convention was drawn by the Protocol of Chuguchak (1864), leaving Lake Zaysan on the Russian side. The Qing empire's military presence in the Irtysh basin crumbled during the 1862–77 Dungan Revolt. After the fall of the rebellion and the reconquest of Xinjiang by Zuo Zongtang, the border between the Russian and the Qing empires in the Irtysh basin was further slightly readjusted, in Russia's favor, by the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881).

The Irtysh River serves as a backdrop in the epilogue of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1866 novel Crime and Punishment. In Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The GULAG Archipelago, the chapter "The White Kitten" details Georgi Tenno's escape from a camp along this river.

FC Irtysh Omsk, a soccer team in Omsk, Russia. FC Irtysh Pavlodar, a soccer team in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan. Irtysh (Иртыш), a Russian military hospital ship, used at the Bering Strait Swim 2013.