Semirechye (Семиречье, also written Semiryechye, Semirech'e, Semirechiye, Semirechie, Semireche) is a historical name of a part of Russian Turkestan, which corresponds to the South-Eastern part of modern Kazakhstan, known as Zhetysu (Жетісу ʒi̯ɘtɘsʊw meaning "seven rivers"; also transcribed Jetisuw, Jetysu, Jity-su, Жетысу, Джетысу, etc.). It owes its name, meaning "seven rivers" (literally "seven waters") in Kazakh, to the rivers which flow from the south-east into Lake Balkhash.
The Semirechye (Seven Rivers' basin) falls into today's Almaty Province of Kazakhstan. However, the Semirechie Oblast (Семиреченская область), as an administrative unit of the Russian Empire, included not only the Semirechye proper, but also lands that now constitute parts of northern Kyrgyzstan and adjacent provinces of Kazakhstan as well.
The lands of the Semirechie Oblast (which can be used to give a rough description of the area) included the steppes south of Lake Balkhash and parts of the Tian Shan Mountains around Lake Issyk Kul. The province had an area of 147,300 m²., and was bounded by the province of Semipalatinsk on the north, by China (Xinjiang) on the east and south, and by the former Russian provinces of Fergana, Syr-darya, and Akmolinsk on the west. The Dzungarian Alatau Mountains, which separated it from the Chinese region of Kulja, extend south-west towards the river Ili, with an average height of above the sea, several isolated snow-clad peaks reaching 11,000 to In the south, Semirechie embraces the intricate systems of the Ala-tau and the Tian Shan. Two ranges of the former, the Trans-Ili Ala-tau and the Terskey Ala-tau, stretch along the north shore of Lake Issyk Kul, both ranging from 10,000 to and both partially snow-clad. South of the lake, two ranges of the Tian Shan, separated by the valley of the Naryn, stretch in the same direction, lifting up their icy peaks to 6,000 and, ; while westwards from the lake the precipitous slopes of the Alexander chain, 9000 to high, with peaks rising 3,000 to higher, extend into the former province of Syr-darya (containing the southern Kazakh cities of Chimkent, Auliye-ata and Turkestan). Another mountain complex of much lower elevation runs north-westwards from the Trans-Ili Ala-tau towards the southern extremity of Lake Balkhash. In the north, where the province bordered Semipalatinsk, it included the western parts of the Tarbagatai range, the summits of which (10,000 ft) do not reach the limit of perpetual snow. The remainder of the province consisted of a fertile steppe in the north-east (Sergiopol), and vast uninhabitable sand-steppes on the south of Lake Balkash. Southwards from the last-named, however, at the foot of the mountains and at the entrance to the valleys, there are rich areas of fertile land.
The climate in Semirechie is thoroughly continental. In the Balkash steppes the winter is very cold; the lake freezes every year, and the thermometer falls to . In the Ala-kul steppes the winds blow away the snow. The passage from winter to spring is very abrupt, and the prairies are rapidly clothed with vegetation, which, however, is soon scorched by the sun. The average temperatures are: at Vyernyi (2405 ft. high), for the year ., for January 17°, for July 74°; at Przhevalsk (5450 ft), for the year 36.5°, for January 23°, for July 63°; still higher in the mountains, at Naryn (6900 ft), the average temperatures are only, for the year 43.7°, for January 1.4°, for July 64.4°.
Most of Semirechie was conquered by the Russian Empire from Kokand and the Kazakh Great Horde before the outbreak of the Crimean War, which delayed the advance south. The two major Russian fortresses and garrisons in the region, Verny and Pishpek, were founded in 1854 on the sites of former Kokandian fortresses on the Steppe frontier. From 1867-1884 this province was made a part of Russian Turkestan, and from then until 1899 it was incorporated in the Governor-Generalship of the Steppes before reverting back to Russian Turkestan that year. The province was divided into six districts, the chief towns of which were Vyernyi (the capital), Jarkent, Kopal, Pishpek, Przhevalsk and Sergiopol. Before the Russian revolution the chief occupation of the Russians, the Taranchis and the Dzungars, and partly also of the Kazakhs of the region, was agriculture. The most important crops were wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice and potatoes. A variety of oil-bearing plants and green fodder, as also cotton, hemp, flax and poppies, were grown. Livestock breeding was very extensively carried on by the Kazakhs, namely, horses, cattle, sheep, camels, goats and pigs. Orchards and fruit gardens were well developed; and the Russian Imperial crown maintained two model gardens. Bee-keeping was widely spread. The factories consisted of flour-mills, distilleries, tanneries and tobacco works; but a great many domestic trades, including carpet-weaving and the making of felt goods, saddlery and iron goods, were carried on, among both the settled inhabitants and the nomadic Kazakhs. There was also trade with China, valued at less than half a million sterling annually in 1911. From 1905, after the Russian-Japanese war and the construction of the Trans-Aral Railway, the settlement of Russian people in the area increased greatly under the guidance of the new Migration Department in St. Petersburg (Переселенческое Управление). The province was administered by Vasile Balabanov under General Alexander Dutov until the Bolshevik take-over in 1921, when both Dutov and Balabanov escaped to China.
After the Central Asian Revolt of 1916 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Provisional Government's authority in the region collapsed. Approximately 2,500 Russian settlers are thought to have been killed by the Kazakhs in the violence that followed in Semirechie, and this was followed by equally bloody reprisals against the nomadic population, led by the (all-Russian) workers' & soldiers' Soviets in Tashkent and Verny. Bolshevik control was reimposed in 1918-21 in a series of campaigns led by Mikhail Frunze, after whom the town of Pishpek in Semirechie was renamed. In 1924, Semirechie was incorporated in the southern portion of the new Kazakh ASSR by the new Soviet Union, and, in 1931, this was made a full Soviet Republic and nominally independent of Russia. In 1938 the Kyrgyz ASSR, which incorporated the southern portion of Semirechie, also became a Soviet Republic. In late 1991, both republics declared their independence from the Soviet Union, forming the new nations of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan respectively.