Tashkent
Tashkent, also known as Toshkent, is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3.1 million people as of July 1, 2025. It is located in northeastern Uzbekistan, Tashkent’s history stretches back centuries as part of the ancient Silk Road, the network of trade routes that connected East and West, the city has long been a crossroads of cultures, goods, and ideas.
Before the influence of Islam in the mid-8th century AD, Sogdian and Turkic culture was predominant. After Genghis Khan destroyed the city in 1219, it was rebuilt and profited from its location on the Silk Road. From the 18th to the 19th centuries, the city became an independent city-state, before being re-conquered by the Khanate of Kokand. In 1865, Tashkent fell to the Russian Empire; as a result, it became the capital of Russian Turkestan. In Soviet times, it witnessed major growth and demographic changes due to forced deportations from throughout the Soviet Union. Much of Tashkent was destroyed in the 1966 Tashkent earthquake, but it was soon rebuilt as a model Soviet city. It was the fourth-largest city in the Soviet Union at the time, after Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev.
Tashkent plays a central role in the country's economic and human development. In a 2023 report, the Center for Progressive Reforms ranked it first among Uzbekistan's regions, topping the list in five of the seven categories assessed — healthcare, education, economy, infrastructure, and environment. Economically, Tashkent was the leading contributor to the national GDP, accounting for 19% of Uzbekistan’s GDP in the first half of 2024. This economic dominance is supported by ongoing infrastructure development and urban modernization projects aimed at enhancing its role as a financial and commercial hub. Nonetheless, the city faces challenges such as environmental concerns and the need for sustainable investment in public services.
Since Uzbekistan gained independence, Tashkent has retained its multiethnic population, with ethnic Uzbeks forming the majority. In 2009, it celebrated 2,200 years of its written history. The master plan of Tashkent until 2045 was approved.
History
Etymology
During its long history, Tashkent has undergone various changes in names and political and religious affiliations. Abu Rayhan Biruni wrote that the city's name Tashkent comes from the turkic tash and persian kent, literally translated as "Stone City" or "City of Stones".Ilya Gershevitch traces the city's old name Chach back to Old Iranian *čāiča- "area of water, lake" , and *Čačkand ~ Čačkanθ was the basis for Turkic adaptation Tashkent, popularly etymologized as "stone city". Livshits proposes that Čač originally designated only the Aral Sea before being used for the Tashkent oasis.
Ünal critiques Gershevitch's and Livshits's etymology as being "based on too many assumptions". He instead derives the name Čač from Late Proto-Turkic *t1iāt2 "stone", which he proposes to be seemingly another translation, besides the apparent Chinese translation 石 shí "stone", of *kaŋk-, which possibly meant "stone". Against Harold Walter Bailey's and Edwin G. Pulleyblank's suggested Tocharian origin for *kaŋk-, Ünal proposes that it was instead an Iranian word and compares it to Pashto kā́ṇay "stone".
Early history
The first occupants identified in the Tashkent oasis were the Burgulik culture, an ancient pastoral society of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. The Burgulik era is usually divided into two periods, Burgulik I occurred during the 9th to 7th centuries BCE and Burgulik II, from the 6th to 4th centuries BCE. Archaeological excavations indicate that the Burgulik people were involved in animal husbandry, possibly agriculture with some irrigation and handicrafts. They lived primarily in basement shaped huts or hollowed cave dwellings and there was no evidence of wooden architecture. The hill fort, Shashtepa, in the southern part of the city was constructed during Burgulik I and is believed to have been abandoned in the 7th century BCE.Shashtepa was one of the largest villages of the Burgulik era as the availability of running water from the Dzhun Aryk, a branch of the Chirchik River and fertile soil made its location ideal for the sedentary life of agriculture. At the later stage, it was influenced by the late Saka culture of Southern Kazakhstan and the culture of Northern Fergana.
The Burgulik culture was replaced by the Kaunchin culture, which is usually associated with the population of the Kangju state, a Chinese name for a kingdom in Central Asia that existed from about 140 BCE to the 5th century CE. Chinese sources suggest that a settlement existed here at oasis near the Chirchik River in the 2nd century BCE. Tashkent might have been or near "Beitian," the summer capital of Kangju.
Some scholars believe that a "Stone Tower" mentioned by Ptolemy in his famous treatise Geography, and by other early accounts of travel on the old Silk Road, referred to this settlement. This tower is said to have marked the midway point between Europe and China. Other scholars, however, disagree with this identification, though it remains one of four most probable sites for the Stone Tower.
History as Chach
In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, the town and the province were known as Chach. The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi also refers to the city as Chach.File:Ambassadors from Chaganian, and Chach to king Varkhuman of Samarkand. 648-651 CE, Afrasiyab, Samarkand.jpg|thumb|Ambassadors from Chaganian, and Chach to king Varkhuman of Samarkand. 648-651 CE, Afrasiyab murals, Samarkand.
The principality of Chach had a square citadel built around the 5th to 3rd centuries BC, some south of the Syr Darya River. By the 7th century AD, Chach had more than 30 towns and a network of over 50 canals, forming a trade center between the Sogdians and Turkic nomads. The Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who travelled from China to India through Central Asia, mentioned the name of the city as . The Chinese chronicles History of Northern Dynasties, Book of Sui, and Old Book of Tang mention a possession called 石 or 赭時 with a capital of the same name since the fifth century AD.
In 558–603, Chach was part of the Turkic Khaganate. At the beginning of the 7th century, the Turkic Khaganate, as a result of internecine wars and wars with its neighbors, disintegrated into the Western and Eastern Khaganates. The Western Turkic ruler Tong Yabghu Qaghan set up his headquarters in the Ming-bulak area to the north of Chach. Here he received embassies from the emperors of the Tang Empire and Byzantium. In 626, the Indian Buddhist preacher Prabhakāramitra arrived with ten companions to the Khagan. In 628, Xuanzang arrived in Ming-bulak.
The Turkic rulers of Chach minted their coins with the inscription on the obverse side of the "lord of the Khakan money" ; with an inscription in the ruler Turk, in Nudjket in the middle of the 8th century, coins were issued with the obverse inscription "Nanchu Ertegin sovereign".
Islamic Caliphate
Chach was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate at the beginning of the 8th century.According to the descriptions of the authors of the 10th century, Shash was structurally divided into a citadel, an inner city and two suburbs - an inner and an outer. The citadel, surrounded by a special wall with two gates, contained the ruler's palace and the prison.
File:M10 Abassides AH190.jpg|thumb|200px|Silver Dirham of Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid minted in Tashkent in 190 AH
Post Caliphate rule
Under the Samanid Empire, whose founder Ismail Samani was a descendant of Persian Zoroastrian convert to Islam, the city came to be known as Binkath. However, the Arabs retained the old name of Chach for the surrounding region, pronouncing it ash-Shāsh instead.Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ali ash-Shashi, known as al-Kaffal ash-Shashi, was born in Tashkent. He was an Islamic theologian, scholar, jurist of the Shafi'i madhhab, hadith scholar and linguist.
After the 11th century, the name evolved from Chachkand/Chashkand to Tashkand. The modern spelling of "Tashkent" reflects Russian orthography and 20th-century Soviet influence.
At the end of the 10th century, Tashkent became part of the possessions of the Turkic state of the Karakhanids. In 998/99 the Tashkent oasis went to the Karakhanid Ahmad ibn Ali, who ruled the north-eastern regions of Mavarannahr. In 1177/78, a separate khanate was formed in the Tashkent oasis. Its center was Banakat, where dirhams of Mu'izz ad-dunya wa-d-din Qilich-khan were minted, in 1195–1197; and of Jalal ad-dunya wa-d-din Tafgach-khakan, in 1197–1206.
Mongol conquest
The city was destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1219 and lost much of its population as a result of the Mongols' destruction of the Khwarezmid Empire in 1220.Timurid period
Under the Timurid and subsequent Shaybanid dynasties, the city's population and culture gradually revived as a prominent strategic center of scholarship, commerce and trade along the Silk Road.During the reign of Amir Timur, Tashkent was restored and in the 14th-15th centuries Tashkent was part of Timur's empire. For Timur, Tashkent was considered a strategic city. In 1391 Timur set out in the spring from Tashkent to Desht-i-Kipchak to fight the Khan of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh Khan. Timur returned from this victorious campaign through Tashkent.
The most famous saint Sufi of Tashkent was Sheikh Khovendi at-Takhur. According to legend, Amir Timur, who was treating his wounded leg in Tashkent with the healing water of the Zem-Zem spring, ordered to build a mausoleum for the saint. By order of Timur, the Zangiata mausoleum was built.