The Uzbeks are a mix of the aboriginals and Mongol, Iranian and Turkic tribes and got their name from Khan Uzbek who ruled 1282 to 1342. They have a highly developed culture with a long literate tradition.
|REconomy:|N Traditionally stockraising is the most important industry. Agriculture is dependent on artificial irrigation, and has been heavily expanded in the 20th century. Most important crops are cotton, vegetables, grain, grapes, potatoes, rice, tobacco and silk.
Cotton and silk form the base for an extensive textile industry.
Many minerals such as natural gas, oil, coal, gold, uranium, copper, tungsten, aluminium and phosphates that form the base for an extensive industry that has been developed since World War II.
|RHistory:|N By AD Persian tribes lived in Uzbekistan but they were forced away or conquered by Turkish tribes in the 6th century AD.
In the 13th century Mongols invaded. Khan Uzbek founded the Mongol Golden Horn and converted to Islam.
During the 16th and 17th centuries the Uzbeks were very expansive and founded Khanats in neighbouring areas, but were in turn invaded and conquered by the Russians. The Russian conquest started in the 18th century and was completed in 1876. But there were several uprisings, the last one 1916.
After the Russian revolution some of the parts of Uzbekistan declared themselves independent countries, but were reconquered by the Sovjet Union in 1924 when the Uzbek Sovjet Socialist Republic was established.
The Gorbachev policy of glasnost did not immediately change the political scene in Uzbekistan. However the environmental problems causing the drying of the rivers and the Aral Sea, as well as the ethnic demand of making Uzbekian the official language instead of Russian, made the Uzbekian Supreme Sovjet declare the independent Republic of Uzbekistan in August 1991. In December 1991 Uzbekistan signed the Alma Alta treaty and joined the Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS.
