Samarkandסמרקנד

Central Asia

Samarkand is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan, today the country's second largest. Known to the Greeks as Marakanda, the Sogdian city was taken by Alexander the Great in 329 BCE. Umayyad forces under Qutayba ibn Muslim captured it around 710, and under the Samanids (875-999) it was one of the leading cities of the eastern Islamic world. Genghis Khan's armies sacked it in 1220, but Timur made it his capital in 1370, and his grandson Ulugh Beg built a madrasa on the Registan square and, in 1428, an astronomical observatory. The city was also home to a large Bukharan Jewish community, most of which emigrated from the 1970s on. Its historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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