Uzbekistan

Where the name comes from

Uzbekistan joins Uzbek with Persian -stan, “land”; one reading is Turkic öz, “self”, and bek, “master”, meaning “one’s own master”, but the origin is debated.

First people

Iranian-speaking communities lived in these oases long ago, and Turkic-speaking Uzbek groups later mixed with them.¹

Known for

Uzbekistan is known for Samarkand and Bukhara, Silk Road cities of blue-tiled mosques; Samarkand was Timur’s capital.^2,3

Outside contact

Russia conquered Tashkent in 1865 and made Bukhara a protectorate in 1868 and Khiva in 1873.¹

The modern country

A Soviet republic followed in 1924, and independence in 1991.¹