Geography
The geography of Uzbekistan. The Republic of Uzbekistan, the ‘Land of Uzbeks’, forms the very center of ex-Soviet Central Asia, for it alone borders each of the new republics – Kazakhstan to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east and southeast, Turkmenistan to the southwest, as well as Afghanistan to the south. Uzbekistan and Liechtenstein share the distinction of being the only doubly landlocked countries in the world. Unlike some of their neighbors, the Uzbeks remain a clear majority in their republic, accounting for over 80 percent of the total population of 22.5 million. Most of its territory of 447.400 square kilometers (roughly the size of Sweden) lies between the two major rivers of Central Asia, the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) and the Amu Darya (Oxus).
Ethnic Groups
Nomadic migrations through the centuries make precise ethnic definitions almost impossible. The ancient tribes of the Scythians, Sogdians, Khorezmians, and myriad Turkic peoples formed the foundation for the later Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, and even Tajiks. History is also complicated by Soviet ‘divide and rule’ tactics, whereby common heritage was distorted into artificial ‘nationalist’ identities. Uzbek authorities claim some 130 different nationalities reside within the republic.
Uzbek
The Uzbeks are predominantly Turkic people, Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school, yet their ethnogenesis shows significant Persian and Turco-Mongol elements. The origin of the ethnonym itself is in dispute. One view holds that the group name derives from Uzbek Khan (1282-1342), the last powerful ruler of the Golden Horde and responsible for its conversion to Islam, though the nomadic Uzbeks were never subject to him. The etymological argument states that the name means ‘Independent’ or ‘the man himself’, from uz, self, and Bek, a noble title of leadership.
Kazakh
Like the Uzbeks, the Kazakhs have a complex ethnic history stretching back to various nomadic tribes breeding livestock on the steppes of Turkestan long before the Mongols of Genghis Khan. A popular explanation derives the ethnonym, first used in the 16th century, from kaz (grouse) and ak (white), after the legend of a white steppe goose that turned into a princess who birthed the first Kazakh. Another version reads Kazakh as ‘wanderer’, descriptive of their mobile lifestyle, or rather ‘outlaw’, a term coined after the first united Kazakh confederation, the Kazakh Orda, split from the Shaybani Uzbeks in the 15th century.
Kyrgyz
White felt ak-kalpak, the yurt-like headgear of the Kyrgyz, symbolizes a proud nation of mountain nomads. One translation of their name is ‘indestructible’, for about 93 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s territory comprises the lofty mountains of the Tian Shan and Altai ranges. The Kyrgyz know them as the ‘Wings of the Earth’, a remote refuge from countless invasions.
Turkmen
For centuries, the ‘man-stealing Turcomen’ were the scourge of travelers in western Central Asia. Unscrupulous slave trades, the Turkmen ravaged merchant caravans and sleeping oases in the hunt for loot and human flesh. Harsh desert wasteland characterizes most of present-day Turkmenistan, yet archaeologists have recorded agricultural settlements over 5.000 years old. The modern Turkmen are descended from the Oghuz Turkic tribes of the Mongol Altai region who migrated to this part of Khorasan in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
Tajik
Tajikistan, like Kyrgyzstan, is predominantly a mountain state: some 76 percent of its territory rests high in the Pamir mountains, a world of yaks and glaciers rarely dipping below an altitude of 3.000 meters (10.000 feet). Most similarities there, however, for the Tajiks are the old men out of Central Asia – Indo-European, Iranian-speaking, with almond eyes, pronounced noses, and heavy beards. This ethnolinguistic oasis predates the arrival of the Turks by at least a millennium.
Others
The Turkic Karakalpak, numbering over 400.000, occupy an autonomous republic within northwestern Uzbekistan. The Russian population percentage in Central Asia declines steadily with every new assertion of the republics’ independence. In 1989, the Russians accounted for 8.3 percent of the population of Uzbekistan; this had dropped to 5,5 percent by 1996 – a combination of low birth rates and large-scale emigration. Many of the other non-native peoples, such as Ukranians, Belorussians, Volga Germans, and Koreans, often deported to Central Asia in the 1930s and during World War II, have also found cause to leave. Other inhabitants of Uzbekistan include Uighurs, the Turkic people based in Xinjiang, Dungans, Muslim Chinese immigrants, and relatively small numbers who still identify themselves as Tatars, Persians, Arabs, Jews, Gypsies, or Turks.
