The region currently known as the country of Uzbekistan has been referred to by many names over the millennia. The name Uzbekistan first appears in 16th century literature.[25] Other names for the region include: Transoxiana, Turkestan, and Bukhara. In the 14th century the region served as the birthplace, home, and capital of Tamerlane. Under Tamerlane, the region was a part of the Timurid Empire which extended from the Black Sea to the Arabian Sea, and to just outside of Delhi, India. Prehistory and ancient history The first people known to have inhabited Central Asia were Scythians who came from the northern grasslands of what is now Uzbekistan, sometime in the first millennium BC; when these nomads settled in the region they built an extensive irrigation system along the rivers.[28] At this time, cities such as Bukhoro (Bukhara) and Samarqand (Samarkand) emerged as centres of government and high culture.[28] By the fifth century BC, the Bactrian, Sogdian, and Tokharian states dominated the region.[28] As East Asia began to develop its silk trade with the West, using an extensive network of cities and rural settlements in the province of Transoxiana, and further east in what is today Xinjiang, the Sogdian intermediaries became the wealthiest of these merchants. As a result of this trade on what became known as the Silk Road, Bukhara and Samarkand eventually became extremely wealthy cities, and at times Transoxiana (Mawarannahr) was one of the most influential and powerful provinces of antiquity.[28] Timur's empire at his death (map without vasals) Triumphant crowd at Registan, Sher-Dor Madrasah. The Emir of Bukhara viewing the severed heads of Russian soldiers on poles. Painting by Vasily Vereshchagin (1872). Russian troops taking Samarkand in 1868, by Nikolay Karazin In 327 BC, Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire provinces of Sogdiana and Bactria, which contained the territories of modern Uzbekistan. Popular resistance to the conquest was fierce, causing Alexander's army to be bogged down in the region that became the northern part of the Macedonian Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. The kingdom was replaced with the Yuezhi-dominated Kushan Empire in the first century BC. For many centuries thereafter the region of Uzbekistan was ruled by the Hephthalites and Sassanid Empires, as well as by other empires, for example, those formed by the Turkic Gokturk peoples. Medieval history .mw-parser-output .ambox{border:1px solid #a2a9b1;border-left:10px solid #36c;background-color:#fbfbfb;box-sizing:border-box}.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+link+.ambox{margin-top:-1px}html body.mediawiki .mw-parser-output .ambox.mbox-small-left{margin:4px 1em 4px 0;overflow:hidden;width:238px;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:88%;line-height:1.25em}.mw-parser-output .ambox-speedy{border-left:10px solid #b32424;background-color:#fee7e6}.mw-parser-output .ambox-delete{border-left:10px solid #b32424}.mw-parser-output .ambox-content{border-left:10px solid #f28500}.mw-parser-output .ambox-style{border-left:10px solid #fc3}.mw-parser-output .ambox-move{border-left:10px solid #9932cc}.mw-parser-output .ambox-protection{border-left:10px solid #a2a9b1}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-text{border:none;padding:0.25em 0.5em;width:100%}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-image{border:none;padding:2px 0 2px 0.5em;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-imageright{border:none;padding:2px 0.5em 2px 0;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-empty-cell{border:none;padding:0;width:1px}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-image-div{width:52px}@media(min-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .ambox{margin:0 10%}}@media print{body.ns-0 .mw-parser-output .ambox{display:none!important}}This subsection needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this subsection. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: "Uzbekistan" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) The Muslim conquests from the seventh century onward saw the Arabs bring Islam to Uzbekistan. In the same period, Islam began to take root among the nomadic Turkic peoples. In the eighth century, Transoxiana, the territory between the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers, was conquered by the Arabs (Qutayba ibn Muslim), becoming a focal point soon after the Islamic Golden Age. In the ninth and tenth centuries, Transoxiana was brought into the Samanid State. In the tenth century it was gradually dominated by the Turkic-ruled Karakhanids, as well as their Seljuk (Sultan Sanjar) overseer's.[29] The Mongol conquest under Genghis Khan during the 13th century brought change to the region. The invasions of Bukhara, Samarkand, Urgench and others resulted in mass murders and unprecedented destruction, which saw parts of Khwarezmia being completely razed.[30] Following the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, his empire was divided among his four sons and family members. Despite the potential for serious fragmentation, there was an orderly succession for several generations, and control of most of Transoxiana stayed in the hands of the direct descendants of Chagatai Khan, the second son of Genghis Khan. Orderly succession, prosperity, and internal peace prevailed in the Chaghatai lands, and the Mongol Empire as a whole remained a strong and united kingdom, known as the Golden Horde.[31] Timurid period In the early 14th century, however, as the Persian empire began to break up into its constituent parts, the Chaghatai territory was disrupted as the princes of various tribal groups competed for influence. One tribal chieftain, Timur (Tamerlane),[32] emerged from these struggles in the 1380s as the dominant force in Transoxiana. Although he was not a descendant of Genghis Khan, Timur became the de facto ruler of Transoxiana and proceeded to conquer all of western Central Asia, Iran, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and the southern steppe region north of the Aral Sea. He also invaded Russia before dying during an invasion of China in 1405.[31] Timur was also known for his extreme brutality and his conquests were accompanied by genocidal massacres in the cities he occupied.[33] Timur initiated the last flowering of Transoxiana by gathering together numerous artisans and scholars from the vast lands he had conquered into his capital, Samarkand, thus imbuing his empire with a rich Perso-Islamic culture. During his reign and the reigns of his immediate descendants, a wide range of religious and palatial construction masterpieces were undertaken in Samarkand and other population centres.[34] Tamerlane also established an exchange of medical discoveries and patronised physicians, scientists and artists from the neighbouring regions such as India;[35] His grandson Ulugh Beg was one of the world's first great astronomers. It was during the Timurid dynasty that Turkic, in the form of the Chaghatai dialect, became a literary language in its own right in Transoxiana, although the Timurids were Persianate in culture. The greatest Chaghataid writer, Ali-Shir Nava'i, was active in the city of Herat (now in northwestern Afghanistan) in the second half of the 15th century.[31] Areas of three Uzbek Polities ruled in Central Asia in the middle of the 19th century .mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{}  Khanate of Kokand (Ming dynasty)   Khanate of Khiva (Qhongirat dynasty)