Altyn Emel

Declared in 1996, it protects a vast semi-desert landscape between the river Ili and the Aktau mountains, of colourful layered geological formations. Its most celebrated feature is the Singing Dune (Akkum-Kalkan), one of the few dunes in the world able to give off a deep audible hum when the sand slides under certain conditions of humidity and wind, a natural acoustic phenomenon that still has no completely satisfactory scientific explanation. The park is also one of the last refuges of the kulan, an Asiatic wild ass reintroduced after it all but disappeared from Kazakhstan in the 20th century.