Samarkand is a major city located in southeastern Uzbekistan. Among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia, it has a population of 882,000 inhabitants as of 2026, making it the second-largest city in Uzbekistan after Tashkent. It is the capital of the Samarkand Region and a district-level city, that includes the urban-type settlements of Kimyogarlar, Farkhod and Khishrav. Earlier it also served as the initial capital of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic from 1925 until 1930.
There is evidence of human activity in the area of the city dating from the late Paleolithic. Though the exact date of founding of Samarkand remains uncertain, it has been proposed that it was established between the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Historically, Samarkand has long been one of the principal urban centers of Iranic civilization in Central Asia and played a major role in the cultural and commercial networks of the Silk Road. It was the central city of the Sogdian civilisation. It was conquered by Alexander the Great in 329 BC; at that time the city was known as Markanda. Islam got introduced to the region in the 8th century AD following the Umayyad campaigns. Samarkand was the capital city of the Samanid Empire, under which New Persian gradually replaced Sogdian as the dominant language of the region. In the late 10th century it became a part of the Turkic Karakhanid Khanate. Thereafter Samarkand was ruled by Turkic or Turko-Mongol dynasties until the Russian annexation in the 19th century, even though the city's culture and literary language remained Persian.
Samarkand prospered from its location on the Silk Road between China, Persia and Europe. At times it was one of the largest cities in Central Asia.Guidebook of history of Samarkand", It was conquered by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan in 1220, which saw widespread destruction. In the 14th century, Timur made it the capital of Timurid Empire, and Samarkand became a noted centre of Islamic scholarly study and the birthplace of the Timurid Renaissance. The Timurid and the later Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara period made most important architectural contributions to the urban landscape of the city, including the Registan Square, the Gur-i Amir Mausoleum, the Bibi-Khanym Mosque, and the Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis, which are now the iconic symbols of the city, well-known for their cobalt and turquoise majolica tilework.Энциклопедия туризма Кирилла и Мефодия. 2008. In 2001, UNESCO added the city to its World Heritage List as Samarkand – Crossroads of Cultures.
Samarkand has a multicultural and plurilingual identity and history that was significantly modified by the process of national delimitation in Central Asia. Significant population of the city consists of the bilingual Tajik speakers,"The Persian-speaking cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, rightly considered by today’s Tajiks as the constituting the historical centres of Tajik civilization" Foltz, Richard. A History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East. I.B. Tauris, 2019. p.9D.I. Kertzer/D. Arel, Census and identity , Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 186–188. whereas Uzbek is the official language and Russian is also widely used in the public sphere, as per the language policy of Uzbekistan.
Modern Samarkand is divided into two parts: the old city, which includes historical monuments, shops, and old private houses; and the new city, which was developed during the days of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union and includes administrative buildings along with cultural centres and educational institutions.
Name The city was named Marakanda when captured by Alexander the Great in 329 BC, which was rendered in Greek as .
According to some sources, the present name comes from the eastern Iranian language Sogdian "stone, rock" and "fort, town." In this respect, Samarkand shares the same meaning as the name of the Uzbek capital Tashkent, with tash- being the Turkic term for "stone" and -kent the Turkic analogue of kand borrowed from Iranian languages.Sachau, Edward C. Alberuni’s India: an Account of the Religion. Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India about AD 1030, vol. 1 London: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRtJBNBR & CO. 1910. p.298. This cannot be proven because the city was given its name long after the Turkification of the Sogdians.
From more realistic and historical sources, according to 11th-century scholar Mahmud al-Kashghari, the city was known in Karakhanid Turkic as or Sämerkänd (), meaning "fat city." 16th-century Mughal emperor Babur also mentioned the city under this name, and 15th-century Castillian traveler Ruy González de Clavijo stated that Samarkand was simply a distorted form of it.
Some languages have their own spellings or variations of the name, such as the French "Samarcande", the Italian and Spanish "Samarcanda", and the Turkish "Semerkant"."SEMERKANT", antalya.bel.tr (archived), accessed 4 February 2026
History Early history
Samarkand is one of the oldest inhabited cities in Central Asia along with Bukhara,Vladimir Babak, Demian Vaisman, Aryeh Wasserman, Political organization in Central Asia and Azerbaijan: sources and documents, p. 374 prospering from its location on the trade route between China and Europe. There is no direct evidence of when it was founded. Researchers at the Institute of Archaeology of Samarkand date the city's founding around 700 BC.
Archaeological excavations conducted within the city limits (Syob and midtown) as well as suburban areas (Hojamazgil and Sazag'on) unearthed 40,000-year-old evidence of human activity, dating back to the Upper Paleolithic. A group of Mesolithic (12th–7th millennia BC) archaeological sites were discovered in the suburbs of Sazag'on-1, Zamichatosh, and Okhalik. The Syob and Darg'om canals, supplying the city and its suburbs with water, appeared around the 7th–5th centuries BC (early Iron Age).
After the Indo-Iranian migrations in the second millennium BC, Samarkand became one of the main centres of the Sogdian civilization. By the time of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia, the city had become the capital of the Sogdian satrapy.
Hellenistic period
Alexander the Great conquered Samarkand in 329 BC. The city was known as Maracanda (Μαράκανδα) to the Greeks.Columbia-Lippincott Gazetteer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972 reprint) p. 1657 Written sources offer clues as to the subsequent system of government. They mention one Orepius who became ruler "not from ancestors, but as a gift of Alexander."
While Samarkand suffered significant damage during Alexander's initial conquest, the city recovered rapidly and flourished under the new Hellenic influence. There were also major new construction techniques. Oblong bricks were replaced with square ones and superior methods of masonry and plastering were introduced.
Alexander's conquests introduced classical Greek culture into Central Asia and for a time, Greek aesthetics heavily influenced local artisans. This Hellenistic legacy continued as the city became part of various successor states in the centuries following Alexander's death: the Greek Seleucid Empire, Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and Kushan Empire (even though the Yuezhi themselves originated in Central Asia). After the Kushan state lost control of Sogdia during the 3rd century AD, Samarkand went into decline as a centre of economic, cultural, and political power. It did not significantly revive until the 5th century.
Sasanian era Samarkand was conquered by the Persian Sasanians c. 260 AD. Under Sasanian rule, the region became an essential site for Manichaeism and facilitated the dissemination of the religion throughout Central Asia.
Hephthalites and Turkic Khaganate era Between AD 350 and 375, Samarkand was conquered by the nomadic tribes of Xionites, the origin of which remains controversial.Grenet Frantz, Regional interaction in Central Asia and northwest India in the Kidarite and Hephthalites periods in Indo-Iranian languages and peoples. Edited by Nicholas Sims-Williams. Oxford university press, 2003. Р.219–220 The settlement of nomadic groups in Samarkand is confirmed by the archaeological material from the 4th century. The culture of nomads from the Middle Syrdarya basin spread in the region.Buryakov Y.F. Iz istorii arkheologicheskikh rabot v zonakh oroshayemogo zemledeliya Uzbekistana // Arkheologicheskiye raboty na novostroykakh Uzbekistana. Tashkent, 1990. pp. 9–10. Between 457 and 509, Samarkand was part of the Kidarite state.Etienne de la Vaissiere, Sogdian traders. A history. Translated by James Ward. Brill. Leiden. Boston, 2005, pp. 108–111.
After the Hephthalites ("White Huns") conquered Samarkand, they controlled it until the Göktürks, in an alliance with the Sassanid Persians, won it at the Battle of Bukhara, c. 560 AD.
In the middle of the 6th century, a Turkic state was formed in Altai, founded by the Ashina dynasty. The new state formation was named the Turkic Khaganate after the people of the Turks, which were headed by the ruler – the Khagan. From 557 to 561, the Hephthalites empire was defeated by the joint actions of the Turks and Sassanids, which led to the establishment of a common border between the two empires.History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The crossroads of civilizations, AD 250 to 750. Vol. 3. Unesco, 1996. p. 332
In the early Middle Ages, Samarkand was surrounded by four rows of defensive walls and had four gates.Belenitskiy A.M., Bentovich I.B., Bolshakov O.G. Srednevekovyy gorod Sredney Azii. L., 1973. An ancient Turkic burial with a horse was investigated on the territory of Samarkand. It dates back to the 6th century.Sprishevskiy V.I. Pogrebeniye s konem serediny I tysyacheletiya n.e., obnaruzhennoye okolo observatorii Ulugbeka. // Tr. Muzeya istorii narodov Uzbekistana. T.1.- Tashkent, 1951.
During the period of the ruler of the Western Turkic Khaganate, Tong Yabghu Qaghan (618–630), family relations were established with the ruler of Samarkand – Tong Yabghu Qaghan gave him his daughter.Klyashtornyy S. G., Savinov D. G., Stepnyye imperii drevney Yevrazii. Sankt-Peterburg: Filologicheskiy fakul'tet SPbGU, 2005 god, s. 97
Some parts of Samarkand have been Christian since the 4th century. In the 5th century, a Nestorian chair was established in Samarkand. At the beginning of the 8th century, it was transformed into a Nestorian metropolitanate.Masson M.Ye., Proiskhozhdeniye dvukh nestorianskikh namogilnykh galek Sredney Azii // Obshchestvennyye nauki v Uzbekistane, 1978, №10, p. 53. Discussions and polemics arose between the Sogdian followers of Christianity and Manichaeism, reflected in the documents.Sims-Williams Nicholas, A Christian sogdian polemic against the manichaens // Religious themes and texts of pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia. Edited by Carlo G. Cereti, Mauro Maggi and Elio Provasi. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2003, pp. 399–407
Early Islamic era
The armies of the Umayyad Caliphate under Qutayba ibn Muslim captured the city from the Tang dynasty c. 710 AD. During this period, Samarkand was a diverse religious community and was home to a number of religions, including Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Manichaeism, Judaism, and Christianity, with most of the population following Zoroastrianism.
Qutayba generally did not settle Arabs in Central Asia; he made the local rulers pay him tribute but largely left them to their own devices. Samarkand was the major exception to this policy: Qutayba established an Arab garrison and Arab governmental administration in the city, its Zoroastrian fire temples were razed, and a mosque was built. Most of the city's population embraced Islam.