MAPS OF HISTORY · HISTORY OF · Uzbekistan

ONE LAND · 7 ATLASES

Uzbekistan, on the map of history

What was Uzbekistan before it was Uzbekistan? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History collection — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.

Transoxiana (mod. Uzbekistan) · The Mongol Empire, 1206–1294

Transoxiana — Bukhara and Samarkand, Islam’s eastern lamps — took the war’s first full force in 1220: “I am the punishment of God” was spoken from Bukhara’s pulpit. Rebuilt under the Chagatai khanate’s loose rule, the region would produce the era’s last act: Timur, who claimed the Chinggisid mantle from Samarkand a century later.

OPEN THE MONGOL EMPIRE ON THE LIVING MAP →

Russian Turkestan (mod. Uzbekistan) · The Russian Revolution, 1905–1924

The heart of Russian Turkestan, with the ancient cities of the khanates of Khiva and Bukhara. The isolated Tashkent Soviet held on from 1917; Frunze’s Turkestan Front reconnected and reconquered the region in 1920, ending the khanates. Muslim resistance (the Basmachi) fought on for years.

OPEN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION ON THE LIVING MAP →

Russian Turkestan (mod. Uzbekistan) · Indian Independence & Partition, 1905–1948

Russian Turkestan’s heart — Bukhara and Samarkand under tsarist rule since the 1860s, the emirate of Bukhara a princely state in all but name until the Red Army ended it in 1920. Soviet power redrew the whole region into national republics in 1924: Moscow’s answer to the empire-and-nation question the Raj was failing to answer further south. The parallels — indirect rule, cotton extraction, engineered borders — made Central Asia the subcontinent’s unheeded mirror.

OPEN INDIAN INDEPENDENCE & PARTITION ON THE LIVING MAP →

Soviet Central Asia (mod. Uzbekistan) · China in Revolution, 1911–1949

OPEN CHINA IN REVOLUTION ON THE LIVING MAP →

Uzbekistan · The Great War, 1914–1918

OPEN WWI ON THE LIVING MAP →

Soviet Uzbekistan · The Road to War, 1931–1941

OPEN THE ROAD TO WAR ON THE LIVING MAP →

Uzbekistan · The Cold War, 1945–1991

OPEN THE COLD WAR ON THE LIVING MAP →