Arabat Spit

The Arabat Spit (Ukrainian: Арабатська стрілка, Arabatska strilka; Russian: Арабатская стрелка, Arabatskaya strelka; Crimean Tatar: Arabat beli), also called Arabat Tongue or, literally, Arabat Pointer, is a spit (narrow strip of land) which separates a large, shallow and very salty system of lagoons named Sivash from the Sea of Azov. The spit is located between the town of Henichesk, Ukraine, on the north and the north-eastern shores of Crimea on the south. It is separated from Henichesk by the Henichesk Strait (Russian: Генический пролив). Another name of the strait is "Thin Strait" (Russian: Тонкий Пролив), which reflects the narrow geometry of the strait – it is about 4 km long, 80–150 m wide and 4.6 m deep.

The Arabat Spit is 112 km long, and from 270 m to 8 km wide; its surface area is 395 km2 and thus the average width is 3.5 km. The spit is low and straight on the Azov Sea side, whereas its Sivash side is curved. It contains two areas which are 7–8 km wide and have brown-clay hills; they are located 7.5 km and 32 km from the Henichesk Strait. The top layers of other parts of the spit are formed by sand and shells washed by the flows of the Azov Sea. Its vegetation mostly consists of various weed grasses, thorn, festuce grasses, spear grass, crambe, salsola, salicornia, Carex colchica, tamarisk, rose hip, liquorice, etc. Nowadays, the spit is a health resort and its Azov Sea side is used as a beach. Water is shallow with the depth reaching 2 meters only some 100–200 meters from the shore. Its temperature is around 0 °C in winter (near freezing), 10–15 °C in spring and autumn, and 25–30 °C in summer; air temperature is almost the same. About half of the Spit belongs to the Kherson Oblast, Ukraine and another half to Crimea.