UZBEKISTAN
Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi or Ўзбекистон Республикаси).
The Republic of Uzbekistan declared September 1, 1991 the Day of Independence. The new country appeared on world map and its priorities were to establish a free democratic society and to develop a market economy. The Republic has been recognized by more than 165 countries and diplomatic relations have been established with more than 120. The embassies of more than 40 countries and many authorized international non-governmental agencies have set up their offices in Tashkent. The embassies of Uzbekistan operate in 25 countries of the world and its consulates 10 countries. The country joined the UN in March 1992.
Geography
Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometers(172,700 sq mi). It is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population. Among the CIS countries, it is the 5th largest by area and the 3rd largest by population.
-Population (2009 estimate) 27,606,007 people.
Uzbekistan stretches 1,425 kilometers (885 mi) from west to east and 930 kilometers (578 mi) from north to south. Bordering Kazakhstan and the Aral Sea to the north and northwest, Turkmenistan to the southwest, Tajikistan to the southeast, and Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Uzbekistan is not only one of the larger Central Asian states but also the only Central Asian state to border all the other four. Uzbekistan also shares a short border (less than 150 km or 93 mi) with Afghanistan to the south.
Regions
| Division | Capital City | Area (km²) |
Population (2008) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buxoro Region | Buxoro (Bukhara) | 39,400 | 1,576,800 |
| Jizzax Region | Jizzax | 20,500 | 1,090,900 |
| Navoiy Region | Navoiy | 110,800 | 834,100 |
| Qashqadaryo Region | Qarshi | 28,400 | 2,537,600 |
| Samarqand Region | Samarqand | 16,400 | 3,032,000 |
| Sirdaryo Region | Guliston | 5,100 | 698,100 |
| Surxondaryo Region | Termiz | 20,800 | 2,012,600 |
| Toshkent Region | Toshkent(Tashkent) | 15,300 | 2,537,500 |
| Toshkent City | Toshkent (Tashkent) | 2,192,700 | |
| Farg'ona Region | Farg'ona (Fergana) | 6,800 | 2,997,400 |
| Andijon Region | Andijon | 4,200 | 2,477,900 |
| Namangan Region | Namangan | 7,900 | 2,196,200 |
| Xorazm Region | Urganch | 6,300 | 1,517,600 |
| Qaraqalpaqstan Respublikasi | Nukus | 160,000 | 1,612,300 |
Languages
The Uzbek language is the only official state language. The Tajik language is widespread in the cities of Bukhara and Samarqand because of their relatively large population of ethnic Tajiks.
Russian is an important language for interethnic communication, especially in the cities, including much day-to-day technical, scientific, governmental and business use. Russian is the main language of over 14% of the population and is spoken as a second language by many more.
In 1992 Uzbekistan officially shifted back to Latin script[citation needed], but many signs and notices (including official government boards in the streets) are still written in Uzbek Cyrillic script that had been since 1940. Computers as a rule operate using the "Uzbek Cyrillic" keyboard, and Latin script is reportedly composed using the standard English keyboard.