a city and the administrative center of Samarkand Oblast, Uzbek SSR. It lies in the Zeravshan Valley (between the Dargom and Siab canals), on the Great Uzbek Highway connecting Tashkent with Termez. The city has a railroad station on the Krasnovodsk-Tashkent line; another line runs from Samarkand to Karshi, 142 km to the southwest. Population, 299,000 in 1975 (55,000 in 1897; 105,000 in 1926; 136,000 in 1939; 196,000 in 1959; 267,000 in 1970). Area, 51.9 sq km.
From the fourth century B.C. to the sixth century A.D., the site was occupied by the city of Maracanda, the capital of Sogdia-na, which later became part of the Turkic Kaganate. In 329 the city was captured by Alexander the Great’s army. In the early eighth century A.D., the Arabs seized the city. In the ninth and tenth centuries it was ruled by the Samanids; in the 11th century it was conquered by the Karakhanids and later by the Sel-juk Turks; in the mid-12th century it was taken by the Karaki-tai; and at the beginning of the 13th century it was annexed by the Khwarazm shahs.
In 1220 the Mongol-Tatars destroyed Samarkand. In the late 14th and early 15th centuries it was the capital of Timur’s empire. Under Ulug Beg, an astronomical observatory was built in the city between 1424 and 1429. During this period Samarkand was a major economic and cultural center in Middle Asia. In 1500 it became part of the Sheibanid state, the capital of which was transferred from Samarkand to Bukhara in the mid-16th century. In the late 16th century Samarkand came under the control of the Bukhara Khanate.
In 1868 the city was occupied by tsarist troops and was incorporated into the Russian Empire as the capital of the Zeravshan Okrug; from 1887 it was the administrative center of Samarkand Oblast. The city was linked by rail with Krasnovodsk in 1896 and with Tashkent in 1899. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, industry developed, chiefly cotton ginning, tanning, and food processing. The first revolutionary demonstrations of workers took place in the 1880’s and 1890’s. In the early 20th century, political exiles in the city helped form local Social Democratic organizations. After Soviet power was proclaimed on Nov. 28 (Dec. 11), 1917, Samarkand became part of the Turkestan ASSR. Between 1924 and 1930 the city was the administrative center of the Uzbek SSR, and in 1938 it became an oblast administrative center. Its 2,500th anniversary was celebrated in October 1970; on Feb. 5, 1971, it was awarded the Order of Lenin.
Samarkand is Uzbekistan’s second largest city, after Tashkent, in terms of population and industrial development (68 large industrial enterprises). During the first five-year plan (1929–32), silk reeling and silk weaving factories, a fruit cannery, and a tea curing factory were built. During the Great Patriotic War several plants were evacuated to Samarkand: the Krasnyi Dvigatel’ Plant, producing spare parts for tractors and automobiles, the Kinap Plant, manufacturing film-making equipment, a tobacco-fermentation plant, and a spinning mill.
A superphosphate plant was put into operation in 1948, a footwear plant in 1959, a house-building combine in 1961, and a furniture factory in 1966. Several new industrial enterprises were opened in 1970: a porcelain plant, a garment factory, plants manufacturing elevators and household refrigerators, and the Gelion Plant, producing radio components. Among other important branches are light industry and the food industry. The city obtains natural gas via the Bukhara-Tashkent pipeline.
In the northeastern part of the city are the Afrasiab ruins of an ancient fortified town, with the Museum of the History of the Founding of the City of Samarkand. Nearby are the Shah-i-Zindah mausoleums and the Bibi Khanum religious complex (1399–1404). The complex includes the ruins of a magnificent congregational mosque with rich faience and carved marble decorations on the facade and interior ornamental wall paintings and an octahedral mausoleum with a cross-shaped hall (adorned with tiles and wall paintings) and a crypt. In the center of the old section of Samarkand is Registan Square, with its group of madrasas. South of the square stand the Gur Amir mausoleum, the Aksarai mausoleum (1470’s, a cross-shaped hall with cells and magnificent mosaic and stalactite ornamentation), and the Rukhabad mausoleum (1380’s). Southeast of Registan Square are the ruins of the Ishrat Khan mausoleum, built in 1464. The cross-shaped mausoleum has a domed central hall flanked by two-story chapels. Nearby is the memorial complex of the Abdi Darun mausoleum, dating from the 15th century. Among other noteworthy buildings are the 15th-century Chupan Ata mausoleum, the Khodzha Akhrar madrasa (1630–31), and the Khazret Khyzr mosque, built on an ancient foundation in the 19th and early 20th centuries by the architects Usto Baki and Usto Abdukadyr.
In Soviet times city planning has incorporated the old architectural monuments. Today, Samarkand has a rectangular and radial layout with broad avenues, squares, and parks. A general plan worked out by the architect T. N. Kalinovskaia and the engineer K. P. Orchakovskii was approved in 1969. An 11-story hotel, the Samarkand, was built in 1971 (architects O. Aidinova and A. Balaev).
The city’s scientific research and higher educational institutions include the Research Institute of Karakul Raising, the Research Institute of Medical Parasitology, the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR, the University of Samarkand, and institutes of architecture and building, agriculture, medicine, cooperative trade, and pedagogy. There are also 14 specialized secondary schools. The most noteworthy of the city’s six museums (including branches) are the Museum of the History of the Founding of the City of Samarkand, the Museum of the History of the Culture and Art of the Uzbek SSR, noted for its collections of the ancient and medieval art of Middle Asia, and the S. Aini House Museum, where the writer lived from 1918 to 1954. The city has three theaters—an opera and ballet theater, an Uzbek drama theater, and a Russian drama theater.
On Jan. 1, 1975, the city had 26 hospitals with 6,700 beds (22.4 beds per thousand inhabitants), 2,300 doctors (one for every 132 people), and more than 5,000 medical assistants. There is also a children’s tuberculosis sanatorium.