Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a sovereign nation in Central Asia that is doubly landlocked—one of only two such countries on Earth, alongside Liechtenstein. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the north, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Tajikistan to the southeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest. With a population exceeding 39 million, it is the most populous republic in Central Asia and a member of the Organisation of Turkic States. The official language is Uzbek, written in both Cyrillic and Latin scripts, and spoken by over 89% of the population. Russian serves as a lingua franca, while Tajik is a significant minority language, especially in southern cities like Samarkand and Bukhara.

The earliest known settlers were Eastern Iranian nomads, the Scythians, who established kingdoms in Khwarazm, Sogdiana, and Bactria between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, and later in Fergana and Margiana from the 3rd century BC to the 6th century AD. The region fell under the Achaemenid Empire, then Greco-Bactrian rule, and later the Sasanian Empire until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the 7th century. Early Muslim conquests and the Samanid Empire spread Islam locally, and cities thrived along the Silk Road, becoming centers of the Islamic Golden Age. The Khwarazmian Empire was destroyed by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, leading to Mongol dominance. In the 14th century, Timur established the Timurid Empire, with its capital at Samarkand becoming a scientific hub under Ulugh Beg, sparking the Timurid Renaissance. The Timurid territories were conquered by the Turko-Mongol Shaybanids in the 16th century. During the 19th century, most of Central Asia was gradually absorbed into the Russian Empire, with Tashkent becoming the political center of Russian Turkestan. In 1924, national delimitation created the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union. Under Soviet rule, Uzbekistan became a leading producer of cotton and melons and advanced in science and technology. It declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan in 1991 after the Soviet collapse.

Uzbekistan is a secular state with a semi-presidential government, divided into 12 regions (vilayats), Tashkent City, and the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan. While NGOs have described it as an authoritarian state with limited civil rights, significant reforms under the second president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, have followed the death of the first president, Islam Karimov. These reforms have drastically improved relations with neighbors Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. The country maintains strong ties with major powers including China, Turkey, Russia, India, South Korea, Japan, and the UAE, and its connections with the UK, European Union, and United States have grown rapidly in recent years.

The economy is gradually transitioning to a market system, with foreign trade policy focused on import substitution. In September 2017, the currency became fully convertible at market rates. Uzbekistan is a major producer and exporter of cotton and, thanks to large Soviet-era power facilities and ample natural gas, is the largest electricity producer in Central Asia. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the United Nations (UN), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The name Uzbegistán first appears in the 16th-century work Tarikh-i Rashidi, though the origin of the word Uzbek is disputed. Proposed explanations include a combination of uz (Turkic for "own") and beg ("master" or "leader"), meaning "free" or "independent"; an eponymous link to Oghuz Khagan (also known as Oghuz Beg); a contraction of uğuz (earlier oğuz, meaning "tribe") with bek ("oguz-leader"); or a connection to Özbeg Khan, ruler of the Golden Horde, from whom the Uzbeks migrated into present-day Uzbekistan in the 16th century. All four theories share a middle syllable cognate with the Turkic title beg. During Soviet rule, the country’s name was often spelled Ўзбекистон in Uzbek Cyrillic or Узбекистан in Russian.

The region has been known by many names over millennia, including Transoxiana, Turkestan, and Bukhara. In the 14th century, it was the birthplace, home, and capital of Tamerlane, under whom the Timurid Empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Arabian Sea and as far as Delhi. In early antiquity, nomadic Scythian tribes from the Eurasian Steppe settled the area during the first millennium BC, building extensive irrigation systems along rivers. Cities such as Bukhara and Samarkand emerged as centers of government and high culture. By the 5th century BC, Bactrian, Sogdian, and Tokharian states dominated the region. As East Asia’s silk trade with the West developed through a network of cities in Transoxiana and Xinjiang, Sogdian intermediaries became the wealthiest merchants.