Nukus, city in western Uzbekistan, capital of the Qoraqalpogh Autonomous Republic (Qoraqalpoghiston), in the delta of the Amu Darya River. Nukus is 1255 km (755 mi) west of Toshkent, Uzbekistan's capital, and 230 km (140 mi) south of Muynoq and the former shoreline of the Aral Sea. An increase in upstream irrigation needs reduced the downstream flow of the Amu Darya, contributing to the shrinking of the Aral and the disappearance of its plentiful fish stock. Nukus is a center for the growing and processing of cotton and rice. Fishing, fish processing, and canning, once dominant economic activities in Nukus, have ceased. The local climate has changed with the disappearance of the sea, and Nukus now experiences an average of ten dust and sand storms a year. The 1989 census indicated that Nukus was the fastest growing city in Uzbekistan as a consequence of the deteriorating environmental conditions in the surrounding countryside.
Nukus is the home of the Qoraqalpogh branch of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences and Nukus State University (founded in 1979). Nukus also has a large museum with an art collection from the Russian avant-garde, a bold group of artists who ushered in modernism at the beginning of the 20th century. Many of those artists fell victim to the purges of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the early 1930s, but the late director of the Nukus Museum collected their work and brought it to Nukus. Nukus became a city in 1932 and succeeded Turtkul as capital of Qoraqalpoghiston in 1939. Population (1994 estimate) 185,000.
