Uzbekistan
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Official Name: Republic Uzbekistan |
Flag
Three equal horizontal bands of blue, white, and green separated by red fimbriations with a white crescent moon and twelve white stars in the upper hoist-side quadrant.
The flag features a new moon symbol and one white star for every month of the year. The blue is representative of water and sky; white represents peace; green represents the fertile land, and the two red stripes are symbolic of the people.
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan is the third-largest of the Central Asian republics in area and the first in population (estimated at 27,345,026 in 2008 and growing at the fastest rate in Central Asia). Uzbekistan is completely landlocked between Kazakstan to the north, Turkmenistan to the south, and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east. It shares the Aral Sea, and hence the environmental problems of that area, with Kazakstan. The territory of modern Uzbekistan was at the center of the rich cultural and commercial developments that occurred in Central Asia over a period of two millennia, especially along the axis defined by the Silk Route between Europe and China. Included in Uzbekistan are the three chief Silk Route outposts of Buxoro (Bukhara), Khiva, and Samarqand (Samarkand).
As with the ethnic patterns and boundaries of post-Soviet Uzbekistan, the dominant native language, Uzbek, is in many ways a creation of the Soviet state. Indeed, until the beginning of the Soviet period, the languages spoken among the native population presented a colorful and diverse mosaic. Under Soviet rule, officially at least, this mosaic was replaced by Uzbek, which almost overnight became the official language of the Turkic population of the republic. However, Russian, which was declared the "international language" of Uzbekistan at the same time, was favored above even Uzbek in official usage. Many Russian words made their way into Uzbek because Russian was the language of higher education, government, and economic activity throughout the Soviet era. In the 1980s, Uzbeks began a strong effort to eliminate the recent Russian borrowings from the language. The Latin alphabet was introduced to begin a gradual process of replacing the Cyrillic alphabet. In the mid-1990s, however, Russian still was widely used in official and economic circles.
Information and maps above taken from Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Fact Book. Unless otherwise specified, images sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
Uzbekistani Internet Sources
This section contains convenient starting points for exploring web sites related to Uzbekistan. To make this page easier to load and use, we generally have limited the list to those sites which contain substantial collections of links to information on these subjects. The views reflected on any web site linked below do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center. We provide these links as a service to the public.
General background information on Uzbekistan can be found on the Uzbekistan Wikipedia page.
Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, in English, describes the organizations, its projects, publications, upcoming events and international partners.
Advantour, in English, provides information on Uzbekistan, including maps, city guides, and hotels.
Amnesty International Country Profile: Uzbekistan documents human rights issues in the country.
BBC Uzbek Service provides links to information on the country and the BBC's daily programming in Uzbek and Russian.
Center for Economic Research (Uzbekistan) established in January 1998 as a joint project of the government of Uzbekistan and United Nations Development Program, researches social and economic processes, prepares proposals to deepen the economic reforms conducted in the republic and uses international experience and programs of technical assistance provided by international organizations. In English and Russian.
CIA World Factbook: Uzbekistan provides a general country overview and statistical data from the CIA.
Eric Freedman's reports on life in Uzbekistan. Eric Freedman, a Fulbright scholar and Pulitzer prize winning journalist, lived in Uzbekistan in 2002.
Official web site of the Government of Uzbekistan
Human Rights Watch: Uzbekistan discusses human rights developments and the international community's role.
The Law Library of Congress' Guide to Law Online: Uzbekistan, prepared by the U.S. Law Library of Congress for the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN), is an annotated hypertext guide to sources of information worldwide on government and law available online without charge.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan maintains a webpage (in Russian and in English) that provides information about Uzbekistan's government (including information about its embassies), news, and general information about Uzbekistan and its foreign relations.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Uzbekistan is a digest of latest news from and about Uzbekistan, links to RFE/RL Reports, Weekday Magazine, Newsline and external reports related to Uzbekistan in English. Ozodlik.org contains RFE/RL Uzbek language reporting.
The University of Texas Russian and East European Network Information Center: Uzbekistan page lists links by subject.
US State Department Human Rights Reports 2006: Uzbekistan analyzes human rights situation from a variety of issues: media, political prisoners, human rights-related legislation.
The Uzbekistan National News Agency (in Russian) (in Uzbek) contains current news stories relevant to Uzbekistan and Central Asia.
Uzbekistan Travel Guide - InfoHub's collection of travel-related and other resources.
Uzreport.com is a business-oriented independent group committed to delivering general news and analysis on Uzbekistan and Central Asia.
Zangori Kema is an online Uzbek-English dictionary.