Kattakurgan () is a city in the

Samarqand Region Samarkand Region is the most populous region of Uzbekistan. It is located in the center of the country in the basin of the Zarafshan River. It borders Tajikistan, Navoiy Region, Jizzakh Region and Qashqadaryo Region. It covers an area of 16,773 ...

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

. Administratively, it is a district-level city, that includes the

urban-type settlement Urban-type settlement, abbreviated: ; , abbreviated: ; ; ; ; . is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the So ...

Ingichka. It has 90,600 inhabitants (2021). It is located on the road and railway between

Bukhara Bukhara ( ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan by population, with 280,187 residents . It is the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and t ...

and

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

Etymology

The name is Turkic and means "large town or

kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus (burial mound) constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into mu ...

History

The town does not appear to be of any great antiquity, although after

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

's ransacking of Marakanda (Samarkand), the center of cultural life in that part of the Zeravshan valley may briefly have shifted west to the region around Katta-Kurgan. According to F.F. Pospelov, a fortress was built on the current site by the local saint Sufi Allahyar and his two brothers, Farhat-Atalyk and Allah-Nazar-bii, in 1684, and the town subsequently grew up around it. Modern Kattakurgan (its oldest part is the "old city") was founded in the last quarter of the 17th century (1683-1684). It was the seat of a ''Bek'' (local Governor) under the rule of the Bukharan

Manghit The Manghud, or Manghit (, ''Mangud;'' ) were a Mongol tribe of the Urud-Manghud federation, and a sub-clan of Borjigin, Manghuds (Mangkits or Mangits) who moved to the Desht-i Qipchaq steppe were Turkified. They established the Nogai Horde ...

dynasty. In 1868, following the fall of Samarkand to the Russians and the annexation of the Upper Zeravshan Valley from Bukhara, it became the border town between

Russian Turkestan Russian Turkestan () was a colony of the Russian Empire, located in the western portion of the Central Asian region of Turkestan. Administered as a Krai or Governor-Generalship, it comprised the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh Steppe, b ...

and the

Bukharan Emirate The Emirate of Bukhara (, ) was a Muslim- Uzbek polity in Central Asia that existed from 1785 to 1920 in what is now Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It occupied the land between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, known former ...

, and the center of a district. In 1924 both entities were dissolved by the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

regime, and Katta-Kurgan was incorporated in the new

Uzbek SSR The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (, ), also known as Soviet Uzbekistan, the Uzbek SSR, UzSSR, or simply Uzbekistan and rarely Uzbekia, was a union republic of the Soviet Union. It was governed by the Uzbek branch of the Soviet Communist P ...

. It is currently the second largest city in Samarkand Region.

Demographics

The majority population of Kattakurgan is of Uzbek ethnicity. Kattakurgan previously also had a large Russian population, which is no longer the case.

Sources and further reading

* Ф.Ф. Поспелов "Материалы к Истории Самаркандской Области" ''Справочная Книга Самаркандской Области'' Выпуск X (Самарканд) (1912), pp 108–111 * В.В. Бартольд ''Работы по Исторической Географии'' (Москва) (2002) pp 197–8, pp 287–8

References

Populated places in Samarqand Region Cities in Uzbekistan Samarkand Oblast {{Uzbekistan-geo-stub