Uzbeks in the context of "Bukhara"

Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan" (meaning 'land') in both respective native languages and most other languages. The region is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the southwest, European Russia to the northwest, China and Mongolia to the east, Afghanistan and Iran to the south, and Siberia to the north. Together, the five Central Asian countries have a total population of around 76 million.

In the pre-Islamic and early Islamic eras (c. 1000 and earlier) Central Asia was inhabited predominantly by Iranian peoples, populated by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians, Chorasmians, and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Dahae. As the result of Turkic migration, Central Asia also became the homeland for the Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Tatars, Turkmens, Uyghurs, and Uzbeks; Turkic languages largely replaced the Iranian languages spoken in the area, with the exception of Tajikistan and areas where Tajik is spoken.

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.

Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia, lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir mountain ranges. It is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and China to the east and southeast. Bishkek is the capital and largest city. Ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the country's over 7 million people, followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians.

Kyrgyzstan's history spans a variety of cultures and empires. Although geographically isolated by its highly mountainous terrain, Kyrgyzstan has been at the crossroads of several great civilizations as part of the Silk Road along with other commercial routes. Inhabited by a succession of tribes and clans, Kyrgyzstan has periodically fallen under larger domination, for example the Turkic nomads, who trace their ancestry to many Turkic states. It was first established as the Yenisei Kyrgyz Khanate. Later, in the 13th century, Kyrgyzstan was conquered by the Mongol Empire and under several Mongol dynasties; it regained independence, but was later invaded by the Dzungar Khanate. After the fall of Dzhungars, Kyrgyz and Kipchaks were an integral part of Kokand Khanate.

Bey, also spelled as Baig, Bayg, Beigh, Beig, Bek, Baeg, Begh, or Beg, is a Turkic title for a chieftain, and a royal, aristocratic title traditionally applied to people with special lineages to the leaders or rulers of variously sized areas in the numerous Turkic kingdoms, emirates, sultanates and empires in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Europe, and the Middle East, such as the Ottomans, Timurids or the various khanates and emirates in Central Asia and the Eurasian Steppe. The feminine equivalent title was begum. The regions or provinces where "beys" ruled or which they administered were called beylik, roughly meaning "governorate" or "region" (the equivalent of a county, duchy, grand duchy or principality in Europe, depending on the size and importance of the beylik). However the exact scope of power handed to the beys varied with each country, thus there was no clear-cut system, rigidly applied to all countries defining all the possible power and prestige that came along with the title.

Today, the word is still used formally as a social title for men, similar to the way the titles "sir" and "mister" are used in the English language. Additionally, it is widely used in the naming customs of Central Asia, namely in countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Notably, the ethnic designation of Uzbeks comes from the name of Öz Beg Khan of the Golden Horde, being an example of the usage of this word in personal names and even names of whole ethnic groups. The general rule is that the honorific is used with first names and not with surnames or last names.

As of 2025, Afghanistan has an estimated population of around 49.5 million people. The country is characterized by a highly diverse, multi-ethnic, and multilingual society, reflecting its historical position at the crossroads of Central, South, and Western Asia, along ancient trade and invasion routes. The four major ethnic categories in the country are Pashtun, Tajik/Farsiwan, Hazara, and Uzbek. In addition, Afghanistan has a plethora of minor ethnic categories, including Turkmen, Baloch, Aimaq, Nuristani, Arab and many others. Together they make up the contemporary Afghan people.

Approximately 43% of the population was under the age of 15, and about 74% of Afghans lived in rural areas as of 2016. The country has one of the highest fertility rates in the world outside of Africa, with the average woman giving birth to five children over her lifetime. Around 6.8% of infants die during childbirth or early infancy. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the nation's average life expectancy was estimated at about 63 years as of 2019. The prevalence of HIV remains very low, affecting only about 0.04% of the population.

Atyrau (UK: /ˌætɪˈraʊ, -ˈrɔː/, US: /ˌɑːtɪˈraʊ, -ˈrɔː/; Kazakh: Атырау, pronounced [ɑtəˈrɑw] ; Russian: Атырау), known until 1991 as Guryev (Russian: Гурьев), is a city in Kazakhstan and the capital of Atyrau Region. Atyrau is a transcontinental city, at the mouth of the Ural River on the Caspian Sea, between Europe and Asia, 2,700 kilometres (1,700 miles) west of Almaty and 351 kilometres (218 miles) east of the Russian city of Astrakhan.

Atyrau is famous for its oil and gas industries. It has a population of 355,117 as of 2020. It is predominantly made up of Kazakhs, the minorities being Russians, Koreans, Tatars and Uzbeks.

Uzbek is a Karluk Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official and national language of Uzbekistan and formally succeeded Chagatai, an earlier Karluk language endonymically called Türki or Türkçe, as the literary language of Uzbekistan in the 1920s.

According to the Joshua Project, Southern Uzbek and Standard Uzbek are spoken as a native language by more than 34 million people around the world, making Uzbek the second-most widely spoken Turkic language after Turkish. There are about 36 million Uzbeks around the world, and the reason why the number of speakers of the Uzbek language is greater than that of ethnic Uzbeks themselves is because many other ethnic groups such as Tajiks, Kazakhs, Russians who live in Uzbekistan speak Uzbek as their second language.

Afghans (Pashto: افغانان; Dari: افغان‌ها) are the citizens and nationals of Afghanistan, as well as their descendants in the Afghan diaspora. The country is made up of various ethnic groups, of which Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks are the largest. The three main languages spoken among the Afghan people are Dari (a variety of Persian), Pashto, and Uzbek. Historically, the term "Afghan" was a Pashtun ethnonym, but later came to refer to all people in the country, regardless of their ethnicity after the 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan proposed by the King of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah.

China proper, also called Inner China or Han China, are terms used primarily in the Western world in reference to the traditional "core" regions of Chinese civilization centered around the Yellow River and Yangtze River valleys. There is no fixed definition for China proper as many administrative, cultural and territorial shifts have occurred throughout history. One definition refers to the original heartland regions of the Chinese civilization, the Central Plain (southern North China Plain around the lower Yellow River valley) as well as the historical Nine Provinces; another to the Eighteen Provinces inside Shanhai Pass designated by the Qing regime. In contrast, Outer China is a term usually includes the peripheral marchland regions such as Gobi Desert,, Tarim Basin, Northeast China, Dzungaria, Tibetan Plateau and Yungui Plateau, which were historically autonomous regions with unstable allegiance to the authority of Chinese monarchs.

The term was first used by the Europeans during the 17th century to distinguish the historical "Han lands" (Chinese: 漢地, i.e. regions long dominated by the majority Han Chinese population) from "frontier" regions of China where Han populations intermix with other indigenous ethnicities (e.g. Turkic peoples such as Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, Mongolic peoples, and Tibeto-Burmese peoples such as Tibetans, Yi and Bai) and newer foreign immigrants (e.g. Slavic colonists such as Russians and Ukrainian Cossacks), sometimes known as "Outer China". There was no direct translation for "China proper" in the Chinese language at the time due to differences in terminology used by the Qing regime to refer to the regions.