The Kazakhstan–Uzbekistan border is long and runs from the
tripoint
A tripoint, trijunction, triple point, or tri-border area is a geographical point at which the boundaries of three countries or subnational entities meet. There are 175 international tripoints as of 2020. Nearly half are situated in rivers, la ...
with
Turkmenistan to the tripoint with
Kyrgyzstan. It is Uzbekistan's longest external boundary. The Uzbek capital
Tashkent is situated just from this border.
Description
The border begins in the west at the tripoint with Turkmenistan; it then follows the
56th meridian east
The meridian 56° east of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Europe, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole.
The westernmost part of the border betwe ...
for about up to the
45th parallel north
The 45th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 45 degrees north of Earth's equator. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean.
The 45th parallel north is often called the halfway point between the ...
. There a straight line of goes north-east, followed by another straight line section of . This latter section cuts through the
Aral Sea and the former
Vozrozhdeniya Island
Rebirth Island ( rus, Остров Возрождения, t=Rebirth Island, a=Ru-возрождение.ogg, p=vəzrɐˈʐdʲenʲɪjə; kk, Возрождение аралы, ''Vozrojdenie araly''; uz, Vozrojdeniye oroli) was an island in the ...
(now part of the mainland) which straddle the boundary; the sea was formerly much larger but was severely depleted by Soviet-era irrigation schemes. The central section of the boundary consists of a series of short straight line segments going roughly eastwards through the
Kyzylkum Desert
The Kyzylkum Desert ( uz, Qizilqum, Қизилқум, قىزىلقۇم; kk, Қызылқұм, Qyzylqūm, قىزىلقۇم) is the 15th largest desert in the world. Its name means ''Red Sand'' in Turkic languages. It is located in Central Asia, i ...
, down to the vicinity of Kazakhstan's
Chardara Dam. The border then follows a u-shape at Kazakhstan's
Maktaaral District
Maktaaral ( kk, Мақтаарал ауданы, ) is a district of Turkistan Region in southern Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Easte ...
before proceeding in a roughly north-eastwards direction past Tashkent and then along the
Ugam Range
Ugam Range ( kk, Өгем жотасы, ''Ógem jotasy''; uz, Ugom tizmasi) is a mountain range in South Kazakhstan Region of Kazakhstan and Tashkent Region in Uzbekistan. It is part of Western Tian Shan. The range runs from northeast to southwes ...
to the Kyrgyz tripoint.
The western two-thirds of the border are sparsely populated and traverse largely desert areas, in stark contrast to the eastern third which is densely populated, containing some of the largest towns in Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan. The easternmost section is mountainous and contains a series of national parks (
Sayram-Ugam National Park and
Aksu-Zhabagly Nature Reserve
The Aksu-Zhabagly Nature Reserve ( kz, Ақсу-Жабағылы қорығы, ''Aqsu-Jabağyly Qoryğy''; russian: Aксу-Жабаглинский заповедник, ''Aksu-Zhabaglinskiy zapovednik'') is the oldest nature reserve in Centra ...
in Kazakhstan and Ugam-Chatkal National Park in Uzbekistan).
Uzbekistan's
Jizzakh
, image_caption =
, image_seal = Jizzax gerb.png
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = Uzbekistan
, pushpin_label_position = bottom
, pushpin_map_caption = L ...
to
Sirdaryo
Sirdaryo ( uz, script=Latn, Sirdaryo / uz, label=none, script=Cyrl, Сирдарё; russian: Сырдарья, Syrdarya) is a city in Sirdaryo Region
Sirdaryo Region (, russian: Сырдарьинская область, Syrdaryinskaya oblast ...
railway crosses through Kazakhstan briefly, a legacy of the Soviet era where infrastructure was built without regard to what were then internal boundaries.
History
The
Russian Empire had conquered
Central Asia in the 19th century, by annexing the formerly independent Khanates of
Kokand and
Khiva and the
Emirate of Bukhara
The Emirate of Bukhara ( fa, , Amārat-e Bokhārā, chg, , Bukhārā Amirligi) was a Muslim polity in Central Asia that existed from 1785 to 1920 in what is modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It occupied the land ...
. After the Communists took power in 1917 and created the
Soviet Union it was decided to divide Central Asia into ethnically-based republics in a process known as National Territorial Delimitation (or NTD). This was in line with Communist theory that nationalism was a necessary step on the path towards an eventually communist society, and
Joseph Stalin’s definition of a nation as being ''"a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture"''.
The NTD is commonly portrayed as being nothing more than a cynical exercise in
divide and rule
Divide and rule policy ( la, divide et impera), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power divisively. Historically, this strategy was used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their terr ...
, a deliberately Machiavellian attempt by Stalin to maintain Soviet hegemony over the region by artificially dividing its inhabitants into separate nations and with borders deliberately drawn so as to leave minorities within each state. Though indeed the Soviets were concerned at the possible threat of
pan-Turkic nationalism, as expressed for example with the
Basmachi movement
The Basmachi movement (russian: Басмачество, ''Basmachestvo'', derived from Uzbek: "Basmachi" meaning "bandits") was an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim peoples of Central Asia.
The movement's roots ...
of the 1920s, closer analysis informed by the primary sources paints a much more nuanced picture than is commonly presented.
The Soviets aimed to create ethnically homogeneous republics, however many areas were ethnically-mixed (e.g. the
Ferghana Valley
The Fergana Valley (; ; ) in Central Asia lies mainly in eastern Uzbekistan, but also extends into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan.
Divided into three republics of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse and in the ...
) and it often proved difficult to assign a ‘correct’ ethnic label to some peoples (e.g. the mixed Tajik-Uzbek
Sart
Sart is a name for the settled inhabitants of Central Asia which has had shifting meanings over the centuries.
Origin
There are several theories about the origin of the term. It may be derived from the Sanskrit ''sārthavāha'' "merchant, tra ...
, or the various Turkmen/Uzbek tribes along the Amu Darya).
[Bergne, Paul (2007) ''The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic'', IB Taurus & Co Ltd, pg. 44-5] Local national elites strongly argued (and in many cases overstated) their case and the Soviets were often forced to adjudicate between them, further hindered by a lack of expert knowledge and the paucity of accurate or up-to-date ethnographic data on the region.
Furthermore, NTD also aimed to create ‘viable’ entities, with economic, geographical, agricultural and infrastructural matters also to be taken into account and frequently trumping those of ethnicity. The attempt to balance these contradictory aims within an overall nationalist framework proved exceedingly difficult and often impossible, resulting in the drawing of often tortuously convoluted borders, multiple enclaves and the unavoidable creation of large minorities who ended up living in the ‘wrong’ republic. Additionally the Soviets never intended for these borders to become international frontiers as they are today.
NTD of the area along ethnic lines had been proposed as early as 1920. At this time Central Asia consisted of two Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs) within the
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
: the
Turkestan ASSR
The Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (initially, the Turkestan Socialist Federative Republic; 30 April 191827 October 1924) was an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic located in Soviet Central As ...
, created in April 1918 and covering large parts of what are now southern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, as well as Turkmenistan, and the
Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Kirghiz ASSR, Kirgizistan ASSR on the map), which was created on 26 August 1920 in the territory roughly coinciding with the northern part of today's Kazakhstan (at this time Kazakhs were referred to as ‘Kyrgyz’ and what are now the Kyrgyz were deemed a sub-group of the Kazakhs and referred to as ‘Kara-Kyrgyz’ i.e. mountain-dwelling ‘black-Kyrgyz’). There were also the two separate successor ‘republics’ of the
Emirate of Bukhara
The Emirate of Bukhara ( fa, , Amārat-e Bokhārā, chg, , Bukhārā Amirligi) was a Muslim polity in Central Asia that existed from 1785 to 1920 in what is modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It occupied the land ...
and the
Khanate of Khiva, which were transformed into the
Bukhara and
Khorezm People's Soviet Republic
The Khorezm People's Soviet Republic ( uz, Хоразм Халқ Совет Республикаси; rus, Хорезмская Народная Советская Республика, r=Khorezmskaya Narodnaya Sovetskaya Respublika) was the st ...
s following the takeover by the
Red Army in 1920.
On 25 February 1924 the
Politburo and
Central Committee
Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the c ...
of the Soviet Union announced that it would proceed with NTD in Central Asia. The process was to be overseen by a Special Committee of the Central Asian Bureau, with three sub-committees for each of what were deemed to be the main nationalities of the region (Kazakhs, Turkmen and Uzbeks), with work then exceedingly rapidly. There were initial plans to possibly keep the Khorezm and Bukhara PSRs, however it was eventually decided to partition them in April 1924, over the often vocal opposition of their Communist Parties (the Khorezm Communists in particular were reluctant to destroy their PSR and had to be strong-armed into voting for their own dissolution in July of that year).
The creation of the Kazakh-Uzbek border proved particularly difficult in the
Syr-Darya Oblast, a densely settled area where populations were mixed. Both Uzbeks and Kazakhs claimed the cities of
Turkistan
Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan ( fa, ترکستان, Torkestân, lit=Land of the Turks), is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang.
Overview
Known as Turan to the Persians, western Turk ...
,
Chinaz and
Shymkent
Shymkent (; Шымкент, Şymkent), known until 1993 as Chimkent ( uz, Çımkent, چىمكېنت; Yañalif: Çimkent ()); russian: Чимкент, translit=Chimkent (), is a city in Kazakhstan. It is near the border with Uzbekistan. It is ...
;
Tashkent – a predominantly Uzbek city surrounded by Kazakh areas – proved particularly troublesome, with the Central Asian Bureau eventually being forced to decide on the matter, awarding the city to Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan however gained the large city of Shymkent.
A further complication were the
Karakalpaks; the Soviets were unsure if they were Uzbeks, Kazakhs or a separate nationality altogether. Given the at-best weak sense of Karakalpak nationality, and their perceived closer links to the Kazakhs, they were given their own
Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast
Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast was created on February 19, 1925 by separating lands of the ethnic Karakalpaks from the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and Khorezm People's Soviet Republic.
Initially located within the Kirghiz Autono ...
within the
Kazakh ASSR. This oblast was larger than the modern autonomous
Republic of Karakalpakstan
Karakalpakstan, / officially the Republic of Karakalpakstan, / is an autonomous republic of Uzbekistan. It occupies the whole northwestern part of Uzbekistan. The capital is Nukus (' / ). The Republic of Karakalpakstan has an area of , and ...
and extended considerably further eastwards, thereby cutting the Uzbek SSR in two, with a small exclave around
Khiva. Poor economic performance in the oblast convinced Soviet leaders that Karakalpakstan should be included directly the
Russian SSR
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
* Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and p ...
, a move formalised in 1930; it was upgraded to
ASSR status in 1932.
In 1936 the area was transferred to the Uzbek SSR.
It appears that there were various small changes to the border in the following decades.
Many older maps show a slightly different boundary in the Kara-Kum desert, with a large triangular protrusion of Uzbek territory into what is now Kazakhstan's
Kyzylorda Region (''see map right'').
The boundary became an international frontier in 1991 following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union and the independence of its constituent republics. There were various tensions around the border – especially in the Tashkent area - in the late 1990s-early 2000s, with Kazakhstan accusing Uzbekistan of unilaterally demarcating and militarising the border; eventually in 2001 the two governments agreed to begin a full delimitation of the border.
Full demarcation is currently ongoing.
Border crossings
*
Qaraqalpaqstan (UZB) –
Beyneu (KAZ) (road and rail)
* Yalama (UZB) - Konysbayeva (KAZ) (road)
*
Saryagash (UZB) – Kaplanbek (KAZ) (rail and road)
* Gʻishtkoʻprik (UZB) –
Jibek Joly (KAZ) (road)
* Serke (UZB) –
Turkistan Region
Turkistan Region (), formerly South Kazakhstan Region ( kk, Оңтүстік Қазақстан облысы, translit= Oñtüstık Qazaqstan oblysy) (russian: Южно-Казахстанская область, ') from 1992–2018 and Chimkent ...
(KAZ) (road)
Settlements near the border
Kazakhstan
* Chabankazgan
*
Shardara
Shardara ( kk, Шардара, ''Şardara'') is a town and the administrative center of Shardara District in Turkistan Region of central Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located m ...
*
Zhetisay
* Myrzakent
* Atakent
*
Saryagash
Uzbekistan
*
Qaraqalpaqstan
*
Gagarin
*
Guliston
*
Baxt
*
Sirdaryo
Sirdaryo ( uz, script=Latn, Sirdaryo / uz, label=none, script=Cyrl, Сирдарё; russian: Сырдарья, Syrdarya) is a city in Sirdaryo Region
Sirdaryo Region (, russian: Сырдарьинская область, Syrdaryinskaya oblast ...
*
Chinoz
Chinoz ( uz, Chinoz/Чиноз, russian: Чиназ, Chinaz) is a city in Tashkent Region, Uzbekistan. It is the administrative center of Chinoz District. It has an altitude
Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance m ...
*
Yangiyoʻl
Yangiyoʻl ( uz, Yangiyoʻl / Янгийўл; russian: Янгиюль, Yangiyul) is a district-level in Uzbekistan's Tashkent Region, 20 km from the city of Tashkent. It has a population of 61,700 people. Industry in the area includes textil ...
*
Tashkent
*
Keles :
Keles is a town and district of Bursa Province in the Marmara region of Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Ana ...
*
Chirchiq
Chirchiq, also spelled as Chirchik, ( uz, Chirchiq / Чирчиқ; russian: Чирчик) is a district-level city in Tashkent Region, Uzbekistan. It is about 32 km northeast of Tashkent, along the river Chirchiq. Chirchiq lies in the Chatk ...
*
Gʻazalkent
Gʻazalkent ( uz, Gʻazalkent/Ғазалкент, russian: Газалкент, Gazalkent) is a city in Tashkent Region, Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzb ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan border
Uzbekistan
Kazakhstan
Border
Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders ca ...
International borders
Internal borders of the Soviet Union