Charyn State National Nature Park (93,150 hectares) is located in Ili inter-mountain lowland in Uygur, Enbekshikazakh and Raimbek districts of Almaty province. It was established by the resolution of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated 23 February 2004 N2213. Charyn ash timber dacha (5014 ha), opened in accordance with the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of Kazakh SSR N2447-P dated 19 March 1964 for protection of floodplain forests of the Paleogene relict - Sogdian ash in Sarytogay area in the Charyn floodplain.
Floristic richness of the territory of Charyn National Park is represented by about 1000 vascular plant species, belonging to 434 genus and 92 families. The Delata of Sharyn River has 939 species of 426 genus and 92 familes and Ulken-Boguty has 985 species of 438 genus and 89 families.
Also within the Charyn park there is the Charyn Canyon - the specially protected natural territory of the republican importance, which is in the list of subsoil areas of special ecological, scientific and other significance. Steep rocky slopes of the canyon, paleontological findings, discovered in the area, as well as rare species of fauna and flora are protected there.
The attached area «Delta of Sharyn river» is a part of the modern delta of Charyn, where the mainstream is divided into permanent and temporary streams. The relatively large channels are Karaeren and Tashkarasu. In the southern part of the extended valley Karaeren, the Derevyannoye Lake is located, that accumulates the sand, blown away by south-western winds from the Karabaskum sand massif.
Tashkarasu floodplain has swampy lowlands. The valley slopes are steep and create the edges 3-5 meters high. In the southern part the surface of modern delta has many anthropogenic landforms - the system of many canals and ditches of latitudinal and meridian direction, Charyn deta contains sand and clay alluvium.
The Charyn national natural park has such major sources of water as the rivers Charyn and Ili. In the mountains Ulken Boguty, the main source of surface water is the mountain springs, that do not play a significant role in the water su sy of the site.
Groundwater is a part of the reserves in the Eastern Ili basin, that is a multi-layer artesian basin with abundant hot and cold ground waters, often self-outpouring from numerous water bearing aquifers and complexes.
A range of endemic plants - Ili barberry, Ili honeysuckle, Ili ferule, little helyotrop, Boehm tulip, pshuknurinsk astragalus, Niedzwiecki oxytrope, Sugatinsky ferule, Michelson marsh-beet, Krylov's feather grass, Ili and Balkhash saksaul, Regel’s Ilyiniya,
Regel's cimpegma, Borodin’s actragal, caragans of Kyrgyz, poplar, Sogdian ash, plagiobazis cornflower, Kolpakovsky tulips, Krasnov's cotoneaster and many other rare and endangered species, listed in the «Red Book of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic» (1981) - are growing there.
The following types of flora are represented there: steppe, desert, bush, meadow, marsh and tugai (riparian woodlands and riparian shrub thickets), extremely arid deserts, turang woodlands, oleaster-willow riparian forests and sea-buckthorn willow thickets, reed and reed-thatched meadows can be found there.
Fauna is represented by 10 species of fish, three of which are acclimatized from the Balkhash basin; 4 species of tailless amphibians, 10 species of lizards, 236 species of birds and 47 kinds of mammals.
Danetinskaya toad, Siberian frog, spotted toad-headed agamids, 22 species of birds (Saker, Shaheen, black stork, demoiselle crane, houbara bustard, etc.), 8 species of mammals (gazelle, ligation, manul, Asian barbastelle, Central Asian river Otter) are of special interest, as they are listed in the Red Book of Kazakhstan (1996).