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29-808: This peninsula stretches eastward toward the Taman Peninsula between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea . Most of the peninsula is located within the Lenine Raion . In Classical Antiquity , the area was known as the "Rough Peninsula" ( Greek : Χερσόνησος Τραχεία, Latin : Chersonesus Trachea ). In Slavic languages, its pronunciation does not vary by much: Ukrainian : Керченський півострів , Kerchenskyi Pivostriv ; Crimean Tatar : Keriç yarımadası , Kerich Yarymadasy ; Russian : Керченский полуостров , Kyerchyenskii Polu'ostrov . The Kerch Peninsula

58-583: A classic example of wetland loss from these combined factors. Europe has likely lost nearly half its wetlands. New Zealand lost 90 percent of its wetlands over a period of 150 years. Ecologists recognize that swamps provide ecological services including flood control, fish production, water purification, carbon storage, and wildlife habitats. In many parts of the world authorities protect swamps. In parts of Europe and North America, swamp restoration projects are becoming widespread. The United States government began enforcing stricter laws and management programs in

87-592: A swampy, impassable area. Mikhail Lermontov disparagingly describes the town of Taman in his novel, A Hero of Our Time . The German Wehrmacht and the Romanian Army occupied the Taman Peninsula in 1942; the Soviet Red Army recovered it in 1943. The story of the motion picture Cross of Iron revolves around conflicts that arise within the leadership of a Wehrmacht regiment during

116-408: A variety of sources including precipitation, groundwater, tides and/or freshwater flooding. These hydrologic pathways all contribute to how energy and nutrients flow in and out of the ecosystem. As water flows through the swamp, nutrients, sediment and pollutants are naturally filtered out. Chemicals like phosphorus and nitrogen that end up in waterways get absorbed and used by the aquatic plants within

145-401: A very low property value compared to fields, prairies , or woodlands . They have a reputation for being unproductive land that cannot easily be utilized for human activities, other than hunting , trapping , or fishing. Farmers, for example, typically drained swamps next to their fields so as to gain more land usable for planting crops, both historically, and to a lesser extent, presently. On

174-546: Is a peninsula in Krasnodar Krai , Russia , which borders the Sea of Azov to the north, the Kerch Strait to the west and the Black Sea to the south. One version of the origin of the name "Taman" claims its Circassian origin from "temen", a swamp that corresponds to the nature of the area. The area has evolved over the past two millennia from a chain of islands into today's peninsula. In ancient times

203-638: Is a large swamp in the western Siberia area of the Russian Federation . This is one of the largest swamps in the world, covering an area larger than Switzerland . The Atchafalaya Swamp at the lower end of the Mississippi River is the largest swamp in the United States . It is an important example of the southern cypress swamp but it has been greatly altered by logging, drainage, and levee construction. Other famous swamps in

232-533: Is almost completely surrounded by water and only to the west connects with the rest of Crimea by the Isthmus of Ak-Monay which is only 17 kilometres (11 miles) wide (from the southern end of the Arabat Spit to the town of Primorsky (Khafuz), Feodosiya ). On elevated portions of the isthmus, named after the village of Kamianske (former Aq-Monai ), are seen both of the surrounding seas. The widest portion of

261-896: The Bosporan Kingdom . Swamp A swamp is a forested wetland . Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in creating this environment. Swamps vary in size and are located all around the world. The water of a swamp may be fresh water , brackish water , or seawater . Freshwater swamps form along large rivers or lakes where they are critically dependent upon rainwater and seasonal flooding to maintain natural water level fluctuations. Saltwater swamps are found along tropical and subtropical coastlines. Some swamps have hammocks , or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation , or vegetation that tolerates periodic inundation or soil saturation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp forests and "transitional" or shrub swamps . In

290-635: The Kipchaks c. 1100. The Mongols seized the area in 1239 and it became a possession of Genoa , along with Gazaria in Crimea , in 1419. For most of the 15th century, the Guizolfi (Ghisolfi) family, founded by the Genoese Jew Simeone de Guizolfi, ruled the peninsula on behalf of Gazaria. The rulership of the region by Jewish consuls , commissioners or princes has sparked much debate over

319-979: The boreal regions of Canada, the word swamp is colloquially used for what is more formally termed a bog , fen , or muskeg . Some of the world's largest swamps are found along major rivers such as the Amazon , the Mississippi , and the Congo . Swamps and marshes are specific types of wetlands that form along waterbodies containing rich, hydric soils. Marshes are wetlands, continually or frequently flooded by nearby running bodies of water, that are dominated by emergent soft-stem vegetation and herbaceous plants. Swamps are wetlands consisting of saturated soils or standing water and are dominated by water-tolerant woody vegetation such as shrubs, bushes, and trees. Swamps are characterized by their saturated soils and slow-moving waters. The water that accumulates in swamps comes from

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348-549: The 1970s in efforts to protect and restore these ecosystems. Often the simplest steps to restoring swamps involve plugging drainage ditches and removing levees . Conservationists work to preserve swamps such as those in northwest Indiana in the United States Midwest that were preserved as part of the Indiana Dunes . Swamps can be found on all continents except Antarctica . The largest swamp in

377-733: The 4th century CE the area fell to the Huns ; it was later the capital of Great Bulgaria and fell to the Khazars in the mid-7th century. Following the breakup of the Khazar Khaganate in c. 969, the peninsula formed part of a Khazar Jewish successor state under a ruler named David . By the late 980s, it came largely into the possession of the Kievan Rus and of the Russian Principality of Tmutarakan before falling to

406-738: The Caspian Sea region (which encompasses the Caucasus and Central Asia ) are home to many mud volcanoes . These mud volcanoes are important for the region's oil industry . Beside the above-mentioned bays there are also Mysova bay and Tatarska bay, both located around the Kazan-Tip Cape making it look as a small peninsula. On the territory of the peninsula are located several natural preserves ( zapovedniks ): Taman Peninsula The Taman Peninsula (Russian: Таманский полуостров , IPA: [tɐˈmanskʲɪj pəlʊˈostrəf] )

435-559: The German retreat from the Kuban bridgehead . In 2018, archaeologists discovered the remains of ancient Greek musical instruments , a harp and a lyre . The instruments were discovered while examining an ancient necropolis located near the Volna settlement. Archaeologists say that a Greek polis existed there from the second quarter of the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, which belonged to

464-597: The Kerch Peninsula is between the Kazan-Tip Cape (north) and Chauda Cape (south), that are 52 kilometres (32 miles) apart. The length of Kerch Peninsula is over 90 kilometres (56 miles), from the western portion of Aqmanai Isthmus to the Fonar Cape. The total area of the peninsula is 2,830 square kilometres (700,000 acres), which is just over 10% of the total area of the Crimean peninsula . The southern coast of

493-656: The Kerch peninsula is washed by the Black Sea and the Bay of Feodosia , to the east as a natural border serves the Strait of Kerch , while the northern shores are part of the coastline of the Sea of Azov , Kazantip Bay , and Bay of Arabat . Away to the northwest from the peninsula runs another isthmus known as the Arabat Spit (locally Arabat arrow) which separates Sivash (the Rotten Sea) from Azov Sea. Other prominent features of

522-719: The United States are the forested portions of the Everglades , Okefenokee Swamp , Barley Barber Swamp , Great Cypress Swamp and the Great Dismal Swamp . The Okefenokee is located in extreme southeastern Georgia and extends slightly into northeastern Florida . The Great Cypress Swamp is mostly in Delaware , but extends into Maryland on the Delmarva Peninsula . Point Lookout State Park on

551-600: The coasts of East Sumatra, Kalimantan (Central, East, South and West Kalimantan provinces), West Papua, Papua New Guinea, Brunei, Peninsular Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak, Southeast Thailand, and the Philippines (Riley et al. ,1996). Indonesia has the largest area of tropical peatland. Of the total 440,000 km (170,000 sq mi) tropical peat swamp, about 210,000 km (81,000 sq mi) are located in Indonesia (Page, 2001; Wahyunto, 2006). The Vasyugan Swamp

580-739: The extent to which Khazar Judaism survived in southern Russia during this period. The Khanate of Crimea seized the Taman Peninsula in 1483. It fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1783 and became an Ottoman Sanjak under the Eyalet of Kaffa. In 1791, during the Russo-Turkish War (1787–92) , it passed into the control of the Russian Empire . Russia ceded it back to the Ottomans in 1792. It finally passed to Russia in 1828. For much of

609-487: The other hand, swamps can (and do) play a beneficial ecological role in the overall functions of the natural environment and provide a variety of resources that many species depend on. Swamps and other wetlands have shown to be a natural form of flood management and defense against flooding. In such circumstances where flooding does occur, swamps absorb and use the excess water within the wetland, preventing it from traveling and flooding surrounding areas. Dense vegetation within

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638-668: The peninsula are Mount Mithridat located in the east at the shores of the Strait of Kerch and the Ararat Mountain (175 metres (574 ft)) located just west of the Kerch city, both of which are part of the northeastern elevated region. At the southeastern portion of peninsula are located mountains Sosman and Kharuchu-Oba. The highest mountain on the peninsula is Pikhbopai that is part of the Mithridat crest and 189 metres (620 ft) tall. The Kerch Peninsula, as well as surrounding areas such as Azerbaijan , Iran , Russia , and

667-640: The peninsula was known to the Greeks as Sindikè chersònesus ( Greek : Σινδική χερσόνησος, peninsula of the Sindi ) and Pontic Greek colonies of Hermonassa and Phanagoria stood on the peninsula, as did the later city of Tmutarakan . The Maeotae and Sindi settled in the area from ancient times. In the classical period it became part of the Bosporan kingdom ; its inhabitants included Sarmatians , Greeks , Anatolian settlers from Pontus , and Jews . In

696-532: The southern tip of Maryland contains many swamps and marshes. The Great Dismal Swamp lies in extreme southeastern Virginia and extreme northeastern North Carolina . Both are National Wildlife Refuges . Another swamp area, Reelfoot Lake of extreme western Tennessee and Kentucky , was created by the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes . Caddo Lake , the Great Dismal and Reelfoot are swamps centered at large lakes. Swamps are often associated with bayous in

725-465: The succeeding century, the area was sparsely populated. The largest settlement was the Cossack town (later a stanitsa ) of Taman , succeeded by the port town of Temryuk in modern times. The peninsula contains small mud volcanoes and deposits of natural gas and petroleum . Shallow desalinated lakes and local estuaries inhabited by fish and game, overgrown with thick reeds of the shore, create

754-618: The swamp also provides soil stability to the land, holding soils and sediment in place whilst preventing erosion and land loss. Swamps are an abundant and valuable source of fresh water and oxygen for all life, and they are often breeding grounds for a wide variety of species. Floodplain swamps are an important resource in the production and distribution of fish. Two thirds of global fish and shellfish are commercially harvested and dependent on wetlands. Historically, humans have been known to drain and/or fill swamps and other wetlands in order to create more space for human development and to reduce

783-447: The swamp, purifying the water. Any remaining or excess chemicals present will accumulate at the bottom of the swamp, being removed from the water and buried within the sediment. The biogeochemical environment of a swamp is dependent on its hydrology, affecting the levels and availability of resources like oxygen, nutrients, water pH and toxicity, which will influence the whole ecosystem. Swamps and other wetlands have traditionally held

812-525: The threat of diseases borne by swamp insects. Wetlands are removed and replaced with land that is then used for things like agriculture, real estate, and recreational uses. Many swamps have also undergone intensive logging and farming, requiring the construction of drainage ditches and canals. These ditches and canals contributed to drainage and, along the coast, allowed salt water to intrude, converting swamps to marsh or even to open water. Large areas of swamp were therefore lost or degraded. Louisiana provides

841-907: The world is the Amazon River floodplain, which is particularly significant for its large number of fish and tree species. The Sudd and the Okavango Delta are Africa's best known marshland areas. The Bangweulu Floodplains make up Africa's largest swamp. The Mesopotamian Marshes is a large swamp and river system in southern Iraq , traditionally inhabited in part by the Marsh Arabs . In Asia, tropical peat swamps are located in mainland East Asia and Southeast Asia. In Southeast Asia, peatlands are mainly found in low altitude coastal and sub-coastal areas and extend inland for distance more than 100 km (62 mi) along river valleys and across watersheds. They are mostly to be found on

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