Sogdia in the context of "Syr Darya"

Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is its capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east and is narrowly separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. It has a population of more than 10.7 million people.

The territory was previously home to cultures of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, including the Oxus civilisation in west, with the Indo-Iranians arriving during the Andronovo culture. Parts of country were part of the Sogdian and Bactrian civilisations, and was ruled by those including the Achaemenids, Alexander the Great, the Greco-Bactrians, the Kushans, the Kidarites and Hephthalites, the First Turkic Khaganate, the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, the Samanid Empire, the Kara-Khanids, Seljuks, Khwarazmians, the Mongols, Timurids and Khanate of Bukhara. The region was later conquered by the Russian Empire, before becoming part of the Soviet Union. Within the Soviet Union, the country's borders were drawn when it was part of Uzbekistan as an autonomous republic before becoming a constituent republic of the Soviet Union on 5 December 1929.

Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a doubly landlocked country located in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five countries: Kazakhstan to the north, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Tajikistan to the southeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, making it one of only two doubly landlocked countries on Earth, the other being Liechtenstein. The country has a population of more than 37.6 million, making it the most populous country in Central Asia. Uzbekistan is a member of the Organization of Turkic States. Uzbek, spoken by the Uzbek people, is the official language and spoken by the majority of its inhabitants, while Russian and Tajik are significant minority languages. Islam is the predominant religion, and most Uzbeks are Sunni Muslims.

The first recorded settlers in the land of what is contemporary Uzbekistan were Eastern Iranian nomads, known as Scythians, who founded kingdoms in Khwarazm, Sogdiana, and Bactria in the 8th–6th centuries BC, as well as Fergana and Margiana in the 3rd century BC – 6th century AD. The area was incorporated into the Achaemenid Empire and, after a period of Greco-Bactrian rule and later by the Sasanian Empire, until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century. The early Muslim conquests and the subsequent Samanid Empire converted most of the people into adherents of Islam. During this period, cities began to grow rich from the Silk Road, and became a center of the Islamic Golden Age. The local Khwarazmian dynasty was destroyed by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, leading to a dominance by Mongol peoples. Timur in the 14th century established the Timurid Empire. Its capital was Samarkand, which became a center of science under the rule of Ulugh Beg, giving birth to the Timurid Renaissance. The territories of the Timurid dynasty were conquered by Kipchak Shaybanids in the 16th century. Conquests by Emperor Babur towards the east led to the foundation of the Mughal Empire in India. Most of Central Asia was gradually incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 19th century, with Tashkent becoming the political center of Russian Turkestan. In 1924, national delimitation created the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic as a republic of the Soviet Union. It declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan in 1991.

The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or The Steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Siberia, European Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia.

Since the Paleolithic age, the Steppe Route has been the main overland route between Eastern Europe, North Asia, Central Asia and East Asia economically, politically, and culturally. The Steppe route is a predecessor not only of the Silk Road, which developed during antiquity and the Middle Ages, but also of the Eurasian Land Bridge in the modern era. It has been home to nomadic empires and many large tribal confederations and ancient states throughout history, such as the Xiongnu, Scythia, Cimmeria, Sarmatia, Hunnic Empire, Sogdia, Xianbei, Mongol Empire, Magyar tribes, and Göktürk Khaganate.

Bactria (/ˈbæktriə/; Bactrian: βαχλο, Bakhlo), or Bactriana, was an ancient Iranian civilization in Central Asia, located in the area south of the Oxus River (modern Amu Darya) and north of the Hindu Kush mountains, within modern-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Bactria was strategically located south of Sogdia and west of the Pamir Mountains. These mountain ranges acted as "walls" protecting Bactria from three sides, with the Pamir mountains to the north and the Hindu Kush to the south forming a junction, and the Karakoram range towards the east.

Called "beautiful Bactria, crowned with flags" by the Avesta, the region is considered, in the Zoroastrian faith, to be one of the "sixteen perfect Iranian lands" that the supreme deity, Ahura Mazda, had created. It was once a small and independent kingdom struggling to survive against nomadic Turanians. One of the early centres of Zoroastrianism, and capital of the legendary Kayanian dynasty, Bactria is mentioned in the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great as one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire; it was a special satrapy, ruled by a crown prince or an intended heir. Bactria was the centre of Iranian resistance against the Greek Macedonian invaders after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in the 4th century BC, but eventually fell to Alexander the Great.

Euthydemus I (Greek: Εὐθύδημος, Euthýdēmos, c. 260 BC – 200/195 BC) was a Greco-Bactrian king and founder of the Euthydemid dynasty. He is thought to have originally been a satrap of Sogdia, who usurped power from Diodotus II in 224 BC. Literary sources, notably Polybius, record how he and his son Demetrius resisted an invasion by the Seleucid king Antiochus III from 209 to 206 BC. Euthydemus expanded the Bactrian territory into Sogdia, constructed several fortresses, including the Derbent Wall in the Iron Gate, and issued a very substantial coinage.

The An Lushan rebellion was a civil war in China that lasted from 755 to 763, at the approximate midpoint of the Tang dynasty (618–907). It began as a commandery rebellion attempting to overthrow and replace the Tang government with the rogue Yan dynasty. The rebels succeeded in capturing the imperial capital Chang'an after the emperor had fled to Sichuan, but eventually succumbed to internal divisions and counterattacks by the Tang and their allies. The rebellion spanned the reigns of three Tang emperors: Xuanzong, Suzong, and Daizong.

On 16 December 755, An Lushan, the jiedushi of the Taiyuan Commandery, mobilized his army and marched to Fanyang. An Lushan led the rebellion for two years before he was assassinated by his son An Qingxu. Two years after An Qingxu's ascension, Shi Siming, the governor of Pinglu Commandery and a close ally of An Lushan, killed An Qingxu and usurped the leadership. Shi Siming ruled for two years, but was in turn killed by his own son Shi Chaoyi, who ruled for another two years until the Yan dynasty fell to Tang forces on 17 February 763. There were also other anti-Tang rebel forces, especially those in An Lushan's base area in Hebei, as well as Sogdian forces and other opportunist parties who took advantages of the chaos.

Transoxiana or Transoxania (lit. 'Land beyond the Oxus', now called the Amu Darya) is the Latin name for the region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Turkmenistan and southern Kyrgyzstan. The name was first coined by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC when Alexander's troops conquered the region. The region may have had a similar Greek name in the days of Alexander the Great, but the earlier name is no longer known. Geographically, it is the region between the rivers Amu Darya to its south and the Syr Darya to its north.

The region of Transoxiana was one of the satrapies (provinces) of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia under the name Sogdia. It was defined within the classical world of Persia to distinguish it from Iran proper, especially its northeastern province of Khorasan, a term originating with the Sasanians, although early Arab historians and geographers tended to subsume the region within the loosely defined term "Khorasan" designating a much larger territory. The territories of Khwarazm, Sogdiana, Chaghaniyan, and Khuttal were located in the southern part of Transoxiana; Chach, Osrushana, and Farghana were located in the northern part.

Roxana (died c. 310 BC, Ancient Greek: Ῥωξάνη, Rhōxánē; Old Iranian: *Raṷxšnā- "shining, radiant, brilliant", Dari: روشنک, romanized: Rawšanak) sometimes known as Roxanne, Roxanna and Roxane, was a Bactrian or Sogdian princess whom Alexander the Great married after invading Persia and defeating Darius, ruler of the Achaemenid Empire.

Sogdian art refers to art produced by the Sogdians, an Iranian people living mainly in ancient Sogdia, present-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, who also had a large diaspora living in China. Its apex was between the 5th and 9th centuries, and it consists of a rich body of pre-Muslim Central Asian visual arts. New finds recovered in the past decades allowed scholars to achieve a better understanding of Sogdian art.

Sogdians are best known for their painting, although they excelled also in other fields, such as metalworking and music. Their metalworking, which influenced the Chinese, is sometimes confused with Sasanian metalwork. However, characteristics of Sogdian metalwork, differentiating it from Sasanian metalwork, have been established; for example, with respect to Sasanian metalwork, the designs of Sogdian vessels are more dynamic, and their productions less massive. They differ in technique and shape, as well as iconography.