Kazakhstan–Kyrgyzstan border

The border starts in the west at the tripoint with Uzbekistan in the Ugam Range and then proceeds in a north-eastwards direction, past Taraz and along the Kyrgyz Ala-Too mountains.

Leaving the Chu near the town of Kara-Bulak, the border then proceeds eastwards across the Küngöy Ala-Too Range, north of lake Issyk-Kul, to the tripoint with China.

Kazakhstan's Taraz to Aktobe railway crosses through Kyrgyzstan briefly, a legacy of the Soviet era where infrastructure was built without regard to what were then internal boundaries.

After the Communists took power in 1917 and created the Soviet Union it was decided to divide Central Asia into ethnically based republics in a process known as National Territorial Delimitation (or NTD).

[15][16] The attempt to balance these contradictory aims within an overall nationalist framework proved exceedingly difficult and often impossible, resulting in the drawing of often tortuously convoluted borders, multiple enclaves and the unavoidable creation of large minorities who ended up living in the ‘wrong’ republic.

[20][21] The process was to be overseen by a Special Committee of the Central Asian Bureau, with three sub-committees for each of what were deemed to be the main nationalities of the region (Kazakhs, Turkmen and Uzbeks), with work then exceedingly rapidly.