Portal:Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a doubly landlocked country located in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five countries: Kazakhstan to the north, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Tajikistan to the southeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, making it one of only two doubly landlocked countries on Earth, the other being Liechtenstein. The country has a population of more than 38.2 million, making it the most populous country in Central Asia. Uzbekistan is a member of the Organization of Turkic States. Uzbek, spoken by the Uzbek people, is the official language and is spoken by the majority of its inhabitants, while Russian and Tajik are significant minority languages. Islam is the predominant religion, and most Uzbeks are Sunni Muslims.

The first recorded settlers in Uzbekistan were Eastern Iranian nomads, known as Scythians, who founded kingdoms in Khwarazm, Sogdiana, and Bactria in the 8th–6th centuries BC, as well as in Fergana and Margiana in the 3rd century BC – 6th century AD. The area was incorporated into the Achaemenid Empire and, after a period of Greco-Bactrian rule, was part of the Sasanian Empire until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century. The early Muslim conquests and the subsequent Samanid Empire resulted in the spread of Islam among the local people. During this period, cities began to grow rich from the Silk Road, and became a center of the Islamic Golden Age. The local Khwarazmian Empire was destroyed in the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, leading to a dominance by Mongol peoples. Timur in the 14th century established the Timurid Empire. Samarkand, the Timurid capital, became a center of science under the rule of Ulugh Beg, giving birth to the Timurid Renaissance. The territories of the Timurid dynasty were conquered by Kipchak Shaybanids in the 16th century. Most of Central Asia was gradually incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 19th century, with Tashkent becoming the political center of Russian Turkestan. In 1924, national delimitation created the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic as a republic of the Soviet Union. It declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan in 1991. (Full article...)