Most of Uzbekistan lies in the Turanian Lowland(2), a mix of low, steep-sided, plateaus and the dry plains they overlook. In the west is the Ust Urt(3) Plateau, and related features further south. The great sand desert(4) of Kyzyl Kum dominates the center, northeast of the Amudar'ya(5) valley. Further east, the nation rises on the edges of the great cetnral Asian ranges. The petering out of the Alay Mountains extends as hills into the center of the Kyzyl Kum. A southwest extension of the heights into southeastern Uzbekistan tops 4,400 meters. In the squiggly part of the nation beyond the Syrdary'a(6) lies much of the Fergana valley, bounded north by the ends of the Tian(7) Mountains. There, Mount Adelunga Toghi reaches almost 4,300 meters.
The Amudar'ya flows out of Turkmenistan(8), then along their border, and then--intermittently--north to reach the Aral Sea(9), the great--but diminishing--salt lake that is half in northwest Uzbekistan. The Syrdar'ya is formed in the nation's east from the Naryn and the Karadar'ya(10), both emerging from Kyrgyzstan. It flows into Tajikistan(11) briefly, then turns northwest across Uzbekistan and into Kazakhstan(12). Nor far southwest of its exit point is Lake(13) Aydarkul'(14).
The majority--almost three in four--speak Uzbek(15) as their first language. More than one in 20 speak Russian. The rest speak a miscellany of languages. Nine in ten are of a Moslem background, but only five in ten identify with the religion, and--even among those--knowledge of Islamic tenets is weak, especially among the young. This is a relic of communism. Christians, mostly Russian Orthodox, account for nearly one in ten.
There is one city of over a million: Tashkent(16), the capital, which has nearly two million proper, and more than three million metropolitan residents.
Indo-Europeans were the first group to enter the area whose language is known. First, Indo-Iranian became distinct from the dialects spoken further west or east, and then that group split into Iranian and Indo-Aryan when the latter left the area to move southeast. The local groups spoke Saka(17) in the lowlands, and--by 400 B.C.E.--Bactrian in the upper Amurday'a valley in the southeast of today's Uzbekistan. Also by this time Sogdians, yet another Iranian group, are prominent in Samarkand and Bukhara.(18)
The religion of the Saka was similar to other early Indo-Europeans but added Shamanic rituals, including the ritual use of marijuana. A sky god, Mithra, and an Earth Goddess are among the deities. Under the influence of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Mazdaism spread to the Saka, the Bactrians and the Sogdians. Mazdaism was a blend of the religion taught by Zoroaster(19), and the pre-Zoroastrian relgiion of the Persian rulers, which acknowledged Ahura Mazda, but also Mithra and Amahita, as deities. The royal religion also honored the Median priest class, the magi, and unambivalently included the ritual of haoma drinking and intoxication.
Between the Greek conquest and the Arab conquest there were several changes. I. The Sogdians adopted Manicheism--named for the prophet, Mani--and spread it along the silk road. II. In the lower Amudar'ya Chorasmian was spoken. III. Tocharians, called by the Chinese 'Yueh-Chi', invaded from the north, and centered their new Kushana Empire along the upper Amurdar'ya. They adopted Buddhism and it spread north with their influence. IV. Finally Chrisianity spread east along the trade routes.
Arabs conquered the area by the end of the eighth century. Arabic was the local language of government, commerce and literature until the tenth century, and Islam almost completely replaced Mazdaism, Manicheism and the other religions.
After the Arab's Abbasid Empire disintegrated, Persian became the elite language. But already in the ninth century, Turks were arriving, first as slave soldiers, later as migrants invited by ex-soldiers who founded independent micro-states. The Qarakhanid Turks conquered the east, and the Seljuk Turks the west, and yet more migrants continued to come.
The Mongol conquest changed the dominant Turkish language to Chaghatai from the 13th to the beginning of the 16th centuries. Persian persisted though.
Uzbeks, from north of the Aral Sea, conquered the whole area by 1510, and became the dominant group despite invasions of Kazakhs and others. Their language is a descendent of Chaghatai.
Russians conquered Uzbekistan in the second half of the 19th century in reaction to a cotton shortage caused by the American Civil War. After 1890, large numbers of Russians moved here, following the railroad, and keeping their Christian ways, even when discouraged by their government. The Russian government's anti-nomad policy had the unintended effect of strengthening orthodoxy among Moslems. Religion was much weakened under Russian communist rule, and minorities were exiled to here from elsewhere in the Soviet Empire.
north, from the northwest
north, from all but the northwest
east, from the northeast
toward the southwest of the Fergana, and east, from the southeast
south, from the southeast
southwest
west
(1) Uzbekiston in strict transliteration.
(2) Turananskaya or Turanskaja Nizmennost' in transliterated Russian.
(3) Or Plato Ustyur or Ust'urt in transliterated Russian.
(4) Peski in transliterated Russian.
(5) Also transliterated from Cyrillic as Amudar'ja.
(6) Also transliterated from Cyrillic as Syrdar'ja. It is Asia's ninth longest river.
(7) Tian or Tien means 'Heavenly' in Chinese.
(8) Further upstream it also forms part of the Afghan/ Uzbek boundary.
(9) Aral'skoye or Aral'skoje More in transliterated Russian.
(10) Or Karadar'ja in an alternate transliteration from Cyrillic.
(11) Or Tojikiston.
(12) Or Qazaqstan or Kazakstan or Khazakhstan.
(13) Ozero in transliterated Russian.
(14) Or Ajdarkul' in an alternative transliteration from Cyrillic.
(15) Northern Uzbek, more precisely.
(16) Officially Toshkent.
(17) Also called Skythoi or Scythi or Shaka. The only remaining dialect, Khotanese, is spoken in China.
(18) Today Sogdian's modern form, Yaghnobi, is spoken only in one valley in Tajikistan.
(19) Zarathustra in Persian.