Travelling Club - Uzbekistan

Fact Sheet: Uzbekistan

• Location: Central Asia, north of Afghanistan
• Geographic coordinates: 41 00 N, 64 00 E
• Area: total: 447,400 sq km
• Climate: mostly midlatitude desert, long, hot summers, mild winters; semiarid grassland in east
• Terrain: mostly flat-to-rolling sandy desert with dunes; broad, flat intensely irrigated river valleys along course of Amu Darya, Syr Darya (Sirdaryo), and Zarafshon; Fergana Valley in east surrounded by mountainous Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan; shrinking Aral Sea in west
• Natural hazards: NA
• Population: 27,307,134 (July 2006 est.)
• Ethnic groups: Uzbek 80%, Russian 5.5%, Tajik 5%, Kazakh 3%, Karakalpak 2.5%, Tatar 1.5%, other 2.5% (1996 est.)
• Religions: Muslim 88% (mostly Sunnis), Eastern Orthodox 9%, other 3%
• Languages: Uzbek 74.3%, Russian 14.2%, Tajik 4.4%, other 7.1%
• Government type: republic; authoritarian presidential rule, with little power outside the executive branch
• Capital: name: Tashkent (Toshkent)
• Currency code: Uzbekistani soum (UZS)
• Exchange rates: Uzbekistani soum per US dollar - 1,020 (2005), 971.265 (2004), 771.029 (2002), 423.832 (2002), 236.61 (2001)
• Internet country code: .uz
• Airports: 61 (2006)