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Economy of Uzbekistan
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Uzbekistan is among the world’s leading cotton producers. It is known for its orchards and vineyards and is also important
for raising Karakul sheep and silkworms. Uzbekistan’s mineral and oil and gas reserves are substantial. The country
produces and exports a large volume of natural gas. The central bank issues the national currency, the sum.
Resources
The country’s resources include metallic ores; in the Olmaliq (Almalyk) mining belt in the Kurama Range, copper, zinc,
lead, tungsten, and molybdenum are extracted. Uzbekistan possesses substantial reserves of natural gas, oil, and coal. The
country consumes large amounts of its natural gas, and gas pipelines link its cities and stretch from Bukhara to the Ural
region in Russia as well. Surveys show petroleum resources in the Fergana Valley (including major reserves in the
Namangan area), in the vicinity of Bukhara, and in Qoraqalpoghiston. The modern extraction of coal began to gain
importance, especially in the Angren fields, only during World War II. Hydroelectric dams on the Syr Darya, the Naryn,
and the Chirchiq rivers help augment the country’s nuclear-, coal-, and petroleum-powered generation of electricity.
Centuries-old rumours of extensive gold deposits in Uzbekistan evidently arose from a basis in fact. Rich polymetallic ores
have been found in the Ohangaron (Akhangaran) field southeast of Tashkent. Miners there extract copper, some gold, lead,
molybdenum, tungsten, and zinc. A plant for heat-leaching gold from low-grade ore was built in the mid-1990s by a
subsidiary of the Newmont Mining Corporation in the Muruntau field in the Kyzylkum Desert of north-central Uzbekistan.
It was intended to be a joint venture with the government, but Newmont Mining Corporation’s share was forfeited in a
legal battle in 2007.
Uzbekistan requires greater water resources. By the early 1980s the government considered the shortage of water
desperate. Officials in Moscow and Tashkent developed a plan to divert substantial amounts of water out of the Irtysh
River far to the north into a pumped system that would aid in watering parts of lower Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
The project was killed, however, before it began, leaving Uzbekistan with chronic water shortages.
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Agriculture
Ample sunlight, mild winters of short duration, fertile irrigated soil, and good pastures make Uzbekistan suitable for cattle
raising and the cultivation of cotton. Irrigation has fallen into disfavour owing to the depletion of the great rivers, and the
construction of new irrigation systems has been prohibited or curtailed. Already existing grand canals include the Great
Fergana, Northern Fergana, Southern Fergana, and Tashkent. Several large artificial lakes and reservoirs have been
created on the Zeravshan and other rivers.
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In addition to the high and stable cotton yield in this most northerly of the great cotton regions of the world, growers have
raised silkworms systematically since the 4th century. The silkworms are fed mulberry leaves from the many trees planted
along streets and ditches. The Fergana Valley is especially noted for silk production.
Varieties of melons, apricots, pomegranates, berries, apples, pears, cherries, and figs grow abundantly, as do vegetables
such as carrots, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, and greens. Uzbekistan’s grapes are made into wine or raisins or are eaten
fresh. Fruits and vegetables are sold both in the bazaars of Tashkent, Samarkand, Fergana, and other localities and in trade
with neighbouring states. Korean agriculturalists cultivate rice along the middle Syr Darya. Sheep are the principal
livestock.
Industry
Uzbekistan is the main producer of machinery and heavy equipment in Central Asia. The republic manufactures machines
and equipment for cotton cultivation, harvesting, and processing and for use in the textile industry, irrigation, and road
construction. This emphasis on making machinery also makes ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy important. The first
metallurgical plant began operation at Bekobod in 1946.
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Light industry includes tea-packing plants and factories for garment making.
Trade
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Uzbekistan: Major import sources
The leading exports from Uzbekistan consist largely of extracted natural resources or raw materials—cotton, natural gas,
oil, coal, silk, fruit, and Karakul pelts. Some fresh produce reaches Moscow and other northern markets. Manufactured
goods such as machines, cement, textiles, and fertilizer are also exported. Uzbekistan’s largest sources of imports are
China, Russia, South Korea, and Kazakhstan. Its main export destinations are Switzerland, China, Turkey, and Kazakhstan.
Transportation
The great obstacle to further development of markets for Uzbekistan’s copious truck gardening and fruit growing remains
the antiquated means of distribution. Neither the surface nor air transport now available can efficiently or with adequate
refrigeration handle the volume produced in Uzbekistan and needed by the Baltic states, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
Old railways connect the republic’s major urban centres with other Central Asian republics and extend to Moscow and
Siberia. Uzbekistan never had a domestic airline of its own until after independence in 1991, when former Soviet Aeroflot
airplanes and their pilots were chartered to fly rather infrequently from such cities as Samarkand and Tashkent to nearby
cities. Air service now connects Tashkent with London, New York, and other international cities.
Trucks transport most of the freight carried, and the roadways, like other facilities, require much repair—virtual
reconstruction—and widening before they can support the modernizing economies that their builders once hoped to link
with each other. The Great Uzbek Tashkent-Termiz Highway runs south almost to the border with Afghanistan. Termiz
remains virtually a dead end in terms of trade, however, especially since the Soviet intervention (1979–89) in the Afghan
War. A second road, the Zeravshan Highway, connects Samarkand with Chärjew, Turkmenistan, in the west. The Fergana
Ring links the main settlements within the populous Fergana Valley.
Government and society

Constitutional framework
In 1992 Uzbekistan adopted a new constitution to replace the Soviet-era constitution that had been in effect since 1978.
The new constitution establishes the country as a republic and provides for legislative, executive, and judicial branches of
government, dominated by a strong executive. Personal liberties generally are protected, but the government is given the
right to restrict some of these liberties in certain circumstances. Nationalist or religious political parties are prohibited.

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The country’s bicameral legislature (the Oliy Majlis, or Supreme Assembly) consists of a Legislative Chamber and a Senate.
Legislative Chamber members are elected to five-year terms; most of the members of the Senate are indirectly elected, but
some are appointed by the president. The legislature has the authority to amend the constitution, enact legislation, approve
the budget, and confirm presidential appointees.
The president is the head of state and government (with the assistance of the prime minister) and is elected for a maximum
of two consecutive seven-year terms, though the term can be extended by referendum. The president appoints the cabinet
and the high court justices, subject to parliamentary approval, and has the authority to issue binding decrees and repeal
legislation passed by local administrative bodies.
Justice
The highest courts are the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, and the Higher Economic Court (for commercial
cases), in addition to two high courts for the autonomous republic of Qoraqalpoghiston. Judges are appointed by the
president, subject to approval by the legislature.
Health and welfare
Hospital care for Uzbeks improved after 1924. Death rates at first fell markedly, but new problems later arose in public
health because of environmental contamination, especially around the Aral Sea (see above Drainage), and maternal and
infant morbidity and mortality rates now rank among the highest in the former Soviet states. The longevity of adult males
also continues to lag behind rates elsewhere in the former Soviet republics. The poor quality of health care in Uzbekistan is
attributable to discriminatory allocations for health care during the Soviet period and to a lack of sufficient attention to
environmental problems by public health officials.
Housing
Good public housing continued to be in short supply into the 21st century, despite large outlays by the government in this
sector. Efforts since independence to increase private home ownership have proceeded slowly due in part to low
availability of affordable housing. Many citizens have erected their own houses—usually simple low structures, like those in
the past, built around courtyards planted with fruit trees and gardens open to the skies but closed off from the streets—on
suburban plots around Tashkent and other cities that have become available in large numbers.

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Uzbekistan made concerted efforts in the 21st century toward developing its rural housing sector with assistance from the
Asian Development Bank. The Housing for Integrated Rural Development (HIRD) program, a multisector strategy
launched in 2009, sought to build infrastructure that would improve and diversify the housing market in rural areas. While
the program increased the availability of rural housing, it fell short in improving affordability. In 2019 Uzbekistan
undertook an initiative designed to improve the accessibility of market-based mortgage credit.
Education
The famed medieval seminaries (madrasahs) of Bukhara, Khiva, Samarkand, and the Fergana Valley, long in decline,
underwent a revival in the late 18th and again in the late 19th century that prepared new generations for carrying on
Muslim education throughout Central Asia. Thousands of seminarians had flocked to those great institutions from inside
and outside the region. Owing to both the renewed concern for education in the 1890s and the models offered by sudden
activism among modernizers in Egypt, India, Turkey, and Tatarstan, Central Asia instituted its own educational reform
movement known as the New Method (usul-i jadid) during the first two decades of the 20th century. The leaders of the
Jadids, as they called themselves, included Munawwar Qari in Tashkent, Mahmud Khoja Behbudiy in Samarkand,
Sadriddin Ayniy in Bukhara, and ʿAshur ʿAli Zahiriy in Kokand (Qŭqon). They exerted a strong influence on education
during the initial decades of the Soviet period, and their methods and aims have reemerged since independence.
After the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev instituted policies of glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”) in
the mid-1980s, Uzbekistan’s school administrators and teachers acknowledged openly the inadequacies of public
education and began intensive efforts to modernize primary and secondary education; among other measures, Uzbek
replaced Russian as the primary language of instruction. These efforts rendered most schoolbooks, which were written in
Russian, unusable. The new language emphasis and the change in ideology created a need for hundreds of thousands of
copies of entirely new instructional materials in Uzbekistan’s elementary and secondary school system. In response to that
need, several histories of Uzbekistan—somewhat liberated from communist ideological strictures but still showing Marxist
influence—appeared soon after independence, written by scholars experienced in Soviet historiography. Higher education,
too, began the massive switch from Russian-language instruction and teaching materials to a curriculum and classroom
procedure based entirely on Uzbek.
After the destruction of the informal Jadid system by communist authorities in the early 1920s, higher research shifted to
such newer educational institutions as Tashkent State University and, after 1942, to the Uzbek S.S.R. branch of Moscow’s
Academy of Sciences. At its zenith, the latter academic complex supported some 200 scholarly institutes and centres. After
independence, and to some extent starting even earlier, the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan declined in prestige and
suffered large losses in subsidies. By 1992 many institutes had closed or combined with others, and competing institutions
with funding from various state agencies arose to operate in the same field.
Most educational institutions, except for the emerging Islamic centres with their maktabs (primary schools) and
madrasahs organized and supported by Muslim religious educators and their followers, continued to depend on the state
for their budgets and therefore must follow the dictates of Uzbekistan’s authoritarian leaders. In contrast, the network of
Islamic institutions—centred in the Fergana Valley—has attracted to religious instruction thousands of young people, of
whom about half remain outside the public schools.
Cultural life
During the 1980s religious practice surged, transforming many aspects of Uzbek life, especially in the towns of the Fergana
Valley and other concentrations of Muslim believers. This resurgence affected the republic’s cultural life through the
increased activities of religious schools, neighbourhood mosques, religious orders, and religious publishing ventures and
through the Islamic Renaissance Party.
Over the centuries, the territory of what is now Uzbekistan has produced great scholars, poets, and writers whose heritage
has enriched the general culture of humanity. The scholar and encyclopaedist al-Bīrūnī, who lived in the 11th century,
produced a series of geographic works about India and a wide range of writings in the natural sciences and humanities. In
the 15th century the astronomer and mathematician Ulūgh Beg founded a famous observatory in Samarkand. The late
15th-century scholar, poet, and writer ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī greatly advanced Turkic-language literature and was also a talented
artist and composer.
The major writers of the early 20th century broke from the Navāʾī tradition in their style but continued to revere it in their
literary history. In the Jadid era (1900–20) the foremost modern poets and prose writers included Abdalrauf Fitrat,
Sadriddin Ayni, and Abdullah Qadiri, each of whom was bilingual in Uzbek and Tajik. These writers all began as poets and
subsequently branched out to produce many of the first modern indigenous plays, stories, and novels of Central Asia. The
younger poets Batu, Cholpán (Abdulhamid Sulayman Yunús), and Elbek (Mashriq Yunus Oghli) offered metres and rhyme
schemes quite different from the verse composed in the traditions long employed by the poets of the region. Fitrat gained
fame and popularity for such prose and poetic dialogues as Munazara (1909; The Dispute), and Mahmud Khoja Behbudiy
became known for a stage tragedy, Padarkush (1913; The Patricide). Abdullah Qadiri became known for a first Uzbek
historical novel, Otgän kunlär (1922–26; Days Gone By), and Cholpan introduced a new lyricism in his short poems.
Hamza Hakim-Zada Niyaziy was also an early 20th-century playwright and poet later much favoured by Soviet authorities
for his simplified, class-oriented plots and subjects.
Most of these writers died violently either during the Russian Civil War or, more commonly, in Joseph Stalin’s purges of
the 1930s. As a result, Uzbekistan’s intellectual and cultural life suffered trauma for decades to come. Only since
independence have its finest modern authors regained posthumous recognition.
During the second half of the 20th century there was a great increase in the number of writers but not in the quality of the
writing. Until the 1980s most Soviet Uzbek authors produced tendentious novels, plays, and verse in line with official
Communist Party themes. Among the older generation of contemporary authors is Asqad Mukhtar (b. 1921), whose
Socialist Realist novel Apä singillär (Sisters; original and translation published during the 1950s), has been translated into
English and other languages. Mukhtar, along with others of his generation, effectively encouraged the creative efforts of
younger Uzbek poets and authors, a group far less burdened than their elders by the sloganeering characteristic of Soviet
“Socialist Realism.” Among these newer voices, Razzaq Abdurashid, Abduqahhar Ibrahim, Jamal Kamal, and Erkin Wahid,
all born in the 1930s, and Rauf Parfi, Halima Khudayberdiy, Muhammad Ali, Sharaf Bashbek, Mamadali Mahmud, all born
in the 1940s or later, stand out. Several of these new writers have contributed striking dramas and comedies to the theatre
of Uzbekistan. Privately organized drama and theatre were very active in Samarkand, Margilan, Tashkent, and other cities
before 1917. In the difficult economic situation of the 1990s, however, the loss of government subsidies led to a drastic
decline in theatrical activity, and the cinema and television have further emptied the seats in legitimate theatres.
Musical tradition throughout southern Central Asia provides a distinctive classical form of composition in the great cycles
of maqoms handed down from master performers to apprentices. Television and radio as well as concert halls offer
maqom cycles in live performances.
Uzbekistan’s cultural heritage includes magnificent monuments in the national architectural tradition: the mausoleum of
the Sāmānid ruler Ismāʿīl I (9th and 10th centuries) in Bukhara, the great mosques and mausoleums of Samarkand,
constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries, and many other fine tombs, mosques, palaces, and madrasahs. An interesting
recent development is the reclamation, renovation, and reconsecration of many smaller old mosques, some very elegant
though badly damaged; these had been relegated by communist authorities to serve as garages, storehouses, shops,
slaughterhouses, or museums. Muslim rebuilders now accurately reconstruct these damaged buildings as part of a
comprehensive drive to re-create the Islamic life suppressed by the communists between 1920 and 1990.
Edward Allworth
History
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Bayram Khan: mausoleum relief tile
Humans lived in what is now Uzbekistan as early as the Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age), some 55,000 to 70,000 years
ago. The great states of Bactria, Khwārezm, and Sogdiana emerged during the 1st millennium BCE in the fertile region
around the Amu Darya, which served as a centre of trade and cultural exchange on the Silk Road between East and West.
After the 8th-century-CE introduction of Islam into Central Asia, several streams of population flowed into the territory
now forming the land of Uzbekistan. Some migrations contributed to the demographic diversity that characterizes
Uzbekistan. Before the lasting conquest by the Russians in the late 19th century, however, military invaders generally
withdrew from the area soon after they arrived. Arabs after 711 CE, Mongols under Genghis Khan from the 13th century,
Dzungars in the 15th–17th century, and Persians in the 18th century exerted less impact upon the makeup of the
population than upon the social and political systems, because they left behind relatively small, assimilable numbers of
their people.
The early Uzbeks
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Samarkand, Uzbekistan: Shāh-e Zendah
One great incoming human wave that did substantially change the demography of the region brought the ethnonym Uzbek
to the heart of that territory. These Turkic-Mongol tribes came from northwestern Siberia, where they probably adopted
the name Uzbek from the admired Muslim ruler of the Golden Horde, Öz Beg (Uzbek) Khan (reigned 1312–41). A
descendant of Genghis Khan, Abūʾl-Khayr (Abū al-Khayr) at age 17 rose to the khanship of the Uzbek confederation in
Siberia in 1428. During his 40-year reign, Abūʾl-Khayr Khan intervened either against or in support of several Central
Asian Timurid princes and led the Uzbek tribes southeastward to the north bank of the Syr Darya. (See Timur; Timurid
dynasty.) However, a number of Uzbek tribes broke away, adopting the name Kazakh, and fled east in the mid-1450s; their
departure weakened the Uzbeks. Abūʾl-Khayr continued to lead the main Uzbek body until 1468, when he was killed as the
Uzbek confederation was shattered in combat with invading Dzungars.
Recovering rapidly, the mounted Uzbek tribesmen regrouped, and in 1494–95 they conquered key portions of Transoxania
(the region between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, roughly corresponding to modern Uzbekistan). The leader of those
tribes, Abūʾl-Khayr’s grandson Muḥammad Shaybānī Khan (reigned 1500–10), ejected the last Timurid sultans, Bābur and
Ḥusayn Bayqara, from Samarkand and Herat, respectively. The Uzbeks occupied major cities, including Bukhara, Khiva,
Samarkand, and Khujand, and moved their numerous tribes permanently into Mawaraunnahr, Khorāsān, and adjacent
lands. Muḥammad Shaybānī established and gave his adopted name to the potent Shaybānid dynasty, which ruled from its
capital, Bukhara, for a century.
While renowned as military commanders, several Shaybānid khans also gained wide recognition for their Sunni religious
orthodoxy and as cultured patrons of the arts. Muḥammad Shaybānī, for example, was an accomplished poet and wrote
pious tracts in the ornate Chagatai literary language. Monuments of architecture erected by the Uzbeks during the
Shaybānid period further testify to the aesthetics of the dynasty’s rulers. In Bukhara, great well-endowed seminaries and
mosques arose under royal patronage, as did many major buildings and bridges.
During the reign of the greatest Shaybānid ruler, ʿAbd Allāh Khan II (reigned 1557–98), Shaybānid authority was
expanded in Balkh, Samarkand, Tashkent, and Fergana. Uzbek hegemony extended eastward as far as Badakhstān and
East Turkistan and westward to Khorāsān and Khwārezm.
The Shaybānids’ successor, the Ashtarkhanid (Astrakhanid, or Janid) dynasty, ruled Transoxania after 1599. From the
elevated political and cultural accomplishments of the Shaybānids, the level and extent of Uzbek influence slid into decline
under Ashtarkhanid rule, reaching a low point by the mid-1700s. The severe jolt that Iran’s Afshārid ruler, Nādir Shāh,
administered in his quick defeat of Bukhara and Khiva in 1740 decapitated the Ashtarkhanid dynasty, which was finally
extinguished in 1785. By then, power in southern Central Asia had already shifted to three energetic tribal formations: the
khanates of Bukhara (which included the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand), Khiva (northwest of Bukhara on the Amu
Darya), and Kokand (centred in the Fergana Valley in the east).
In Bukhara, which became the dominant Central Asian power, Manghīt tribal chieftains during the late 18th century
energized the khanate and revived its fortunes under the leadership of Emir Maʿsum (also known as Shah Murād; reigned
1785–1800), a remarkable dervish emir who forwent wealth, comfort, and pomp. In the khanate of Khiva, the Qonghirat
tribe succeeded the Ashtarkhanid dynasty and prevailed until 1920, leaving Khiva a museum capital of architectural,
cultural, and literary monuments. The Uzbek Ming tribe, imperial in ambition, founded a new dynasty in Kokand about
1710 as the Ashtarkhanids faltered. Known for the elegant civilization at their courts, the rulers ʿUmar Khan (reigned
1809–22) and Muḥammad ʿAlī Khan (also known as Madali Khan; reigned 1822–42) gave the Uzbek Ming dynasty and the
Kokand khanate a reputation for high culture that joined with an expansionist foreign policy. At its height the khanate
dominated many nearby Kazakh and Kyrgyz tribes and resisted Russian aggression. Subsequent rulers in the dynasty,
however, failed to sustain either the cultural or the political standards of their predecessors.
Russian and Soviet rule
Though the geographic isolation of Central Asia slowed the southward advance of Russian forces, Bukhara was invaded in
1868 and Khiva in 1873; both khanates became Russian protectorates. An uprising in Kokand was crushed in 1875 and the
khanate formally annexed the following year, completing the Russian conquest of Uzbek territory; the region became part
of the Russian province of Turkistan.
Subdued by tsarist Russian weaponry and colonial administrators, Central Asians at the turn of the 20th century diverged
along two cultural and social orientations. The old intelligentsia and clergy of Bukhara and Khiva generally persisted on
their antiquated course, resisting the modernization of educational, religious, economic, and governmental institutions.
Simultaneously, a small but vigorous expression of dissent emerged in the form of an active reform movement. Reformers
were centred in Samarkand but were also present in Bukhara, Tashkent, and Fergana. Jadids, as the reformers called
themselves, were inspired and assisted by Crimean Tatar reformers such as Ismail Gasprinski (Ismail Bey Gaspirali). The
Jadids enjoyed sporadic protection by tsarist governors in Turkistan, and they were able to prepare numbers of young
urban intellectuals for moderate change in their society and culture. Modernization also came to Turkistan with the advent
of the telegraph, telephone, and press; railroads reached Samarkand and Tashkent by 1905.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 brought instability and conflict to Turkistan. Muslims convoked a National Congress in
Kokand and established an autonomous government under Mustafa Chokayev, which was liquidated in February 1918 by
Red Army forces sent from Tashkent. This action provoked a prolonged resistance movement known as the Basmachi
(Qorbashi) Revolt. Slavic and European troops and colonists controlling Tashkent successfully moved to depose the emir of
Bukhara and the khan of Khiva in 1920. New leaders initially came from the ranks of the Jadids, but, by the end of 1921,
communist-dominated politicians held power in both old capitals.
In 1924–25, politicians directed by the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) redrew the Central Asian map according to
a monoethnic principle for each major entity and its people. Karakalpakstan and Uzbekistan arose overnight as ethnically
designated territories within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), which had been established in December
1922. The authorities soon granted Uzbekistan the formal status of constituent republic of the U.S.S.R. Karakalpakstan was
transferred to the Uzbek S.S.R. in 1936, though it retained autonomous status. Uzbeks remained a minority in the capital
city of Tashkent and were underrepresented in the Soviet bureaucracy and administration. Uzbeks quickly learned that real
political authority was held by the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (CPUz), the republic’s branch of the central Communist
Party. The core membership of the CPUz, and for decades its majority, consisted of Slavs and others from outside Central
Asia who made all important local decisions except those reserved to the Soviet centre.
The trauma introduced in Uzbekistan by the communist political purges of the 1930s exacted heavy casualties, especially
among Uzbekistan’s relatively small class of intelligentsia and leaders. World War II (1939–45) brought further emphatic
cultural changes as the Soviet authorities moved thousands of Russian, Polish, and Jewish managers, intellectuals, and
cultural figures to the towns and villages of Uzbekistan. The death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953 helped free
Uzbek institutions from some of the negative pressures of his era. In 1954–55 Tashkent was again opened to
noncommunist visitors from the West after decades of isolation, and Uzbekistan slowly regained direct contact with the
outside world. Uzbeks rose to high levels in Soviet politics; Nuritdin A. Muhitdinov, Sharaf R. Rashidov, and Yadgar S.
Nasriddinova made Uzbeks visible in the U.S.S.R., serving actively in Soviet diplomacy and foreign affairs.
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Despite the easing of some controls on the press and on assembly initiated during the 1980s by the Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev, the communist leadership of Uzbekistan continued its firm control over the republic. In August 1991, CPUz
chiefs led by Islam Karimov supported the Russian coup attempt against Gorbachev. After the coup failed, Uzbekistan
moved quickly to declare independence from the U.S.S.R. The communists—the only experienced politicians in the
republic—retained mastery over the new country, and Karimov easily won the 1991 presidential election.
Like much of Central Asia, Uzbekistan persistently ignored democracy in its practical politics if not in its statements of
principle. Opposition parties were prohibited from participating in elections, and democratic activists were kidnapped or
attacked. Karimov was reelected in 2000 in a ballot that was generally viewed as fraudulent. The government’s human
rights record drew international criticism.
Edward Allworth
Independent Uzbekistan
In the early years of independence, Uzbekistan adopted symbols of sovereignty such as a new constitution, currency,
national anthem, and flag. The degree of diversity in Uzbekistan’s population diminished, as many people, including Jews,
Crimean Tatars, Germans, Greeks, Meskhetian Turks, and Slavs, became apprehensive of Uzbek ethnocentrism and began
emigrating. Islamic militants attempted to gain a foothold in the country, leading to an outbreak of violence and
persecution of many practicing Muslims. Uzbekistan supported the U.S. government’s campaign in Afghanistan, allowing
U.S. forces to use an Uzbek air base beginning in 2001.
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Karimov’s pursuit of stability at the expense of political and human rights culminated in tragedy in May 2005, when
military forces opened fire on a large group of protesters who had gathered in the city of Andijon. Rights groups estimated
that anywhere from 700 to 1,500 civilians died in the massacre, while the government maintained that the military had
been responding to a large-scale jailbreak and that the only fatalities were 187 terrorists. The incident drew international
condemnation—and some sanctions from the European Union and the United States—but Uzbekistan’s repressive status
quo remained intact.
Uzbekistan also faced international criticism for its state-run mobilization of forced labour for the cotton industry, which
yearly saw about a million children and adults coerced into harvesting cotton, often under abusive conditions and for little
or no pay. Uzbekistan took some steps in 2012 to reduce its reliance on child labour, but the practice of drafting hundreds
of thousands of nonvoluntary cotton pickers continued, and government agents continued their harassment and
intimidation of the system’s critics inside Uzbekistan.
Karimov began his third decade in power amid rumours of poor health and with no official successor in place. There were
reports of power struggles within the circle of Uzbekistan’s governmental and commercial elite. One such struggle burst
into public view in 2014 when Karimov’s daughter Gulnara Karimova—a possible successor and one of the most
recognizable personages in the country, as a result of her forays into business, pop music, and fashion—abruptly fell out of
favour and was placed under indefinite house arrest after being implicated in a Swiss corruption investigation and
reportedly feuding with other members of the Karimov family.
In September 2016 Karimov died, leaving the long-serving prime minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev as interim president.
Mirziyoyev won a full term as president in December, with nearly 90 percent of the vote in an election in which he faced
only token opposition. Mirziyoyev’s first moves in office appeared to be aimed at staving off political challenges and
consolidating power. He dismissed powerful government officials, shuffled others around, and projected the air of a
populist reformer.
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Mirziyoyev made some efforts to open the economy and improve Uzbekistan’s sometimes tense relations with the
international community. His policies lifted many barriers to trade, allowed the currency to float, and courted foreign
investment. He showed at least nominal concern for human rights issues, releasing political prisoners and tolerating some
public protests. He reached out to the country’s neighbours as well, most notably Tajikistan. Under Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan
reversed its harsh opposition to the construction of the hydroelectric Rogun Dam. An Uzbek delegation attended the dam’s
inauguration in 2018, just years after Karimov had threatened war over its construction (out of fear that it would divert
water from Uzbekistan). But despite Mirziyoyev’s reforms, many observers noted continued authoritarian behaviour and
suggested that the reforms were motivated primarily by economic development.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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river, Central Asia
Also known as: Zeravšan River
Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Article History
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Zeravshan River
Zeravshan River, river rising in the eastern Turkistan Range and flowing 545 miles (877 km) west through Tajikistan
and southeastern Uzbekistan to disappear in the desert north of Chärjew near the Amu Darya, of which it was at one time a
tributary. The river supplies water to a vast irrigation district, including the Qarshi Steppe to the south (which receives
water from the Zeravshan by a canal). The Zeravshan Valley is densely populated, particularly within Uzbekistan.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.
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Andijon more_vert Actions

Uzbekistan
Also known as: Andižan, Andijan, Andizhan
Andijon, also spelled Andizhan, or Andižan, city, extreme eastern Uzbekistan. Andijon lies in the southeastern part of
the Fergana Valley. The city, which stands on ancient deposits of the Andijon River, dates back at least to the 9th century.
In the 15th century it became the capital of the Fergana Valley and, being on the Silk Road caravan route to China, its chief
centre of trade and handicrafts. In the 18th century it became part of the khanate of Kokand, and in 1876 Andijon was
captured by the Russians. In 1898 it was the scene of an abortive native rebellion against tsarist rule. Andijon is subject to
frequent earth tremors and was leveled by an earthquake in 1902 that took more than 4,000 lives.
Andijon is now a road and rail junction and has engineering, electrotechnical, textile, and food-processing industries. Its
cultural assets include teacher-training, medical, and cotton-growing institutes, an Uzbek theatre of musical drama and
comedy, a puppet theatre, and a museum.
The surrounding area is the most densely populated part of Uzbekistan. Several major irrigation canals provide water for
crops of cotton, grapes, and fruit. The region is also the main petroleum-producing area of Uzbekistan. Other industries are
mainly concerned with processing raw cotton and other agricultural products. Pop. (2007 est.) 321,622.
flag of Uzbekistan more_vert Actions

Written by Whitney Smith
Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
horizontally striped blue-white-green national flag with red fimbriations (narrow borders) between the stripes. In the upper hoist corner are a white
crescent and 12 white stars. The flag’s width-to-length ratio is 1 to 2.
Uzbekistan legalized the design of its new national flag on November 18, 1991. More than 200 proposals had been
submitted in a flag design contest; the winning pattern had five unequal horizontal stripes, as in the flag adopted in 1952
when the country was known as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. The former flag’s horizontal stripes of red-blue-red
with white fimbriations symbolized communism and the water that allowed for cotton and other agricultural produce. In
the new design blue is also for water but corresponds as well to the flag supposedly used by Timur, the great 14th-century
ruler of an empire centred on Samarkand. The green stripe in the new flag suggests Islam but officially refers to nature,
fertility, and new life. The white stripe is for peace and the striving for moral purity in thought and deeds. The red
fimbriations refer to the life force inherent in all humans.
In place of the gold hammer, sickle, and star of the 1952–91 flag, the new design features 12 white stars and a white
crescent. The stars correspond to the months of the year and to the constellations in the zodiac, thus recalling the
astronomical sciences developed in medieval Uzbekistan. The crescent moon heralds the rebirth of an independent
republic, although many Uzbeks and others are likely to see it also as a Muslim symbol. The contest-winning flag of 1991
omitted the crescent and stars from the reverse side of the flag, but they were subsequently added.
Whitney Smith
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Olmaliq more_vert Actions

Uzbekistan
Also known as: Almalyk
Olmaliq, formerly Almalyk, city, eastern Uzbekistan. It is situated 35 miles (55 km) southeast of the city of Tashkent on
the northern slopes of the Qurama Mountains and on the left bank of the Ohangaron River. Olmaliq was founded in 1951
from several settlements exploiting the rich nonferrous-metal resources of the Qurama Mountains. The city has become an
important centre of nonferrous metallurgy and produces copper, molybdenum, lead, and zinc concentrates. Copper and
zinc are also refined there. The Uzbek version of the city’s name became the official one in the early 1990s. Olmaliq (Uzbek:
“Apple Grove”) derives its name from the wild apple trees that grew in the valley. Pop. (2014 est.) 121,100.
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Urgench more_vert Actions

Uzbekistan
Also known as: Urganch, Urgenč
Urgench, also spelled Urgenč, city, south-central Uzbekistan. The city lies along the Shavat Canal and the Amu Darya
(river). Urgench was founded when the inhabitants of the ancient city of Urgench, near present-day Kunya-Urgench, 80
miles (130 km) to the northwest, moved there in the mid-17th century because of their lack of water supply. Formerly a
centre of trade in the khanate of Khiva, Urgench now has several light industries and a music and drama theatre. Pop.
(2014 est.) 137,300.
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The early Uzbeks

Samarkand, Uzbekistan: Shāh-e Zendah

Russian and Soviet rule

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