Uzbekistan
The Silk Road heartland, home to Samarkand and Bukhara
Uzbekistan is the demographic and cultural pivot of Central Asia, the most populous country in the region and the keeper of its grandest history. Along its ancient roads stand Samarkand and Bukhara, fabled Silk Road cities whose turquoise-tiled madrasas and mosques rank among the masterpieces of Islamic architecture. Doubly landlocked, sharing a border with every other Central Asian state, it grew rich and infamous on Soviet cotton, a crop that helped destroy the Aral Sea. Since 2016 it has begun cautiously opening to the world after decades of self-imposed isolation.
Much of the country is arid plain and the Kyzylkum, or Red Sand, desert, with mountains of the western Tian Shan rising in the east toward the high point at Khazret Sultan, 4,643 meters on the Tajik border. The Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers frame the territory, and the fertile, densely populated Fergana Valley is shared with neighbors. In the northwest lies the dried bed of the Aral Sea, an ecological catastrophe of rusting ships stranded on salt flats. The climate is sharply continental, with hot summers and cool winters.
The region was the jewel of the Silk Road and the seat of the Timurid Renaissance under Tamerlane, whose capital Samarkand became a center of science and art. Conquered by Russia in the nineteenth century and made a Soviet republic, Uzbekistan gained independence in 1991 under Islam Karimov, who ruled with an iron hand until his death in 2016. His successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has loosened controls, courted investment, and eased relations with neighbors. The economy mixes cotton, gold, gas, and a young, fast-growing workforce, while the monuments of Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva draw a rising tide of visitors.