The Aral Sea, shown here on a 300 m image of 12 September 2014, is a basin containing the remnants of a large lake located between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south. Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 km², the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s, after the rivers that flew into it were diverted for Soviet irrigation projects. By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes – the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger South Aral Sea, and one smaller lake between the North and South Aral Seas.