Birdwatching in Uzbekistan

Uzbekiston Respublikasi (the Republic of Uzbekistan) is located between two big rivers of Central Asia: Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya rivers. It is the largest of the Central Asian republics in population and the third in area. The following countries of Central Asia surround Uzbekistan: Kazakhstan to the north, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan to the south, and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east. The climate is of the mid-latitude desert and semiarid grassland in the east, is of long, hot summers, mild winters.

Human habitation of Uzbekistan stretches so far back in time that no certain starting date can be fixed. Remains of Neanderthal encampments have been found, and the first mention of cities in the area date to 3rd or 4th century BC, when travellers wrote of the wonders of the isolated region. Ethnic Uzbeks make up two-thirds of the population of 25 million - Tatar, Russians, Kazakhs and Tajik make up the remainder. The mixed population is mostly Muslim [88% (mostly Sunnis)] and Eastern Orthodox Christians [9%], who speak Uzbek [74.3%], Russian [14.2%], and Tajik [4.4%] with a few other smaller ethnic and language groups.

Desert and high plateaus dominate Uzbekistan's 447,400 square km. In fact, 60% of the country is arid, although irrigation provides the means for a massive fruit and cotton economy in the north-eastern part of the country. The biggest body of water in the land-locked region, the Aral Sea, is shrinking rapidly as a result of the unchecked irrigation; about half the area of the Aral Sea has dried up and turned into desert.

For many centuries the territory of modern Uzbekistan was at the center of the rich cultural and commercial developments that occurred in Central Asia. The Great Silk Road passed through Uzbekistan's cities as Fergana, the capital Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. Uzbekistan is not only rich in cotton, vegetables, and grain; its economy is blessed with gold, valuable minerals, and substantial reserves of energy resources, especially oil and natural gas. And cotton still is the most valuable crop, and our country is the fourth-largest cotton producer in the world.