Samarqand, also Samarkand, city, capital of Samarqand Oblast, central Uzbekistan. Located in the irrigated valley of the Zeravshan River, the city has industries that produce tea, wine, textiles, fertilizer, and motor-vehicle parts. It is the oldest city in Central Asia and is divided into a newly built section and an old quarter that has, among other monuments, mosques dating from the 14th and 15th centuries and the 15th-century mausoleum of the Turkic conqueror Tamerlane. The city is the seat of a university and a museum of ancient history.
The site of Samarqand was settled about 2000 BC. Later known as Maracanda, the city was the capital of Sogdiana, an ancient Persian province, and was conquered by Alexander the Great in 329 BC. It subsequently grew as a trade center on the route between China and the Mediterranean region. In the early 8th century AD , it was conquered by the Arabs and soon became an important center of Muslim culture. In 1220 Samarqand was almost completely destroyed by the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan. It flourished again when Tamerlane made it the capital of his empire in 1369. The empire declined in the 15th century, and Samarqand was taken in 1500 by the Uzbeks. In 1784 it was conquered by the emirate of Bukhoro. The city was taken by Russia in 1868 and once again began to assume importance. From 1924 to 1930, Samarqand was the capital of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). Population (1994) 368,000.
