The Uzboy (sometimes spelled Uzboj) was a distributary of the Amu Darya river which flowed through the northwestern part of the Karakum Desert of Turkmenistan until the 17th century, when it abruptly dried up, eliminating the agricultural population that had thrived along its banks.

The Uzboy dried up, and the tribes which had inhabited the river's banks were abruptly dispersed, the survivors becoming nomadic desert dwellers.

[3] In the early 1950s, construction work started to build a major irrigation canal roughly along the river bed of the former Uzboy.

Already in antiquity, Herodotus described it as a branch of the Amu Darya and the medieval authors (Muqaddasiy, Hamdallah, Qazviniy, Hofizi Abru, Abulgʻoziy) also adopted this view.

Neolithic settlements and pottery from the Bronze Age,  as well as sites from the 7th to 5th centuries BC were discovered on the shores of Lake Sarykamysh.

It is assumed that the northern and western Uzboy existed until the 9th century, and that a dam was then built near Gurganj ( Köneürgenç ) for irrigation purposes and to protect the capital of the Khorezm Shahs.

The city was flooded and the Amu Darya again flowed over the Uzboy into the Caspian Sea and the canal system gradually fell into disrepair.

As the Amu Darya shifted eastward in recent times, it could no longer reach the Sarykamysh Depression and flowed into the Aral Basin.

In 1879, by combining older reports, local traditions and the analysis of orographic conditions, it was proven that the river had been diverted from the Caspian Sea by human intervention and not by the uplift of the Aralo-Caspian lowlands.

It was thought possible to reactivate this bed as a canal not only for irrigation purposes, but also to "create a navigable waterway for Russia into the heart of its inner Asian provinces."

There was a large waterfall, a place called the Lion’s Jaw and at one point the river disappeared underground for some distance.

All geographers, from the ancient Greeks to the early Arabs, reported that the Oxus flowed into the Caspian, although their accounts are vague.

It seems that about 1575 the east branch of the Oxus cut through some hills causing the main current to shift to the Aral Sea.

Also a dam was built near the old site to retain the remaining water and to deny it to the Turkomans who were in the habit of raiding the Oxus delta.

In 1971, reckless irrigation projects along the Amu Darya caused water to once again break through underground to Lake Sarykamysh, which was not stopped.

With the start of construction of a new drainage system and two collecting channels to the Karaschor Depression in 2000, attempts are being made to drain the salty groundwater before it can salinize the surrounding area.