History

History of Samarkand

From Afrasiyab to today: the eras and events that shaped the city.

mil. avv. VIII asr – 712

Antiquity

Maracanda, born on the Afrasiyab plateau, was the chief city of Sogdiana: the age of the Achaemenids and Alexander, of nomad empires, and of the Sogdian merchants who ran the trade of the Silk Road.

Afrasiyab: the cradle of the city

Samarkand's oldest quarter is the Afrasiyab plateau, a mound of more than 200 hectares on the north-eastern edge of the modern city. The first town here was enclosed by a mud-brick rampart some 7 metres thick that ran for 5.5 km around the plateau, with a citadel set apart in the north and water brought in by the Dargom canal, drawn off the Zarafshan River.

Exactly how old the city is remains contested. Samarkand celebrated its 2,500th anniversary in 1970 and, with UNESCO's endorsement, its 2,750th in 2007; the French archaeologist Frantz Grenet dates the first fortification to roughly 650–550 BC. In 2025 the regional council, citing new excavations at Koktepa, declared the city 3,000 years old. Legend links the mound's name to Afrasiyab, the Turanian king of the Shahnameh.

Maracanda: from the Achaemenids to Alexander

In the 6th century BC Sogdiana became a satrapy of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and Greek and Roman writers called its capital Maracanda. Alexander the Great took the city in 329 BC, but a revolt led by the Sogdian noble Spitamenes kept the Macedonians off balance for two years. Excavations have revealed the Greek garrison's fortifications and a large granary; Greek rule came in two phases, the second under the Graeco-Bactrian king Eucratides in the 2nd century BC. Later Sogdiana fell within the orbit of the Kangju confederation, and historians still disagree on how far, if at all, it answered to the Kushan Empire.

The age of the Sogdian merchants

Between the 4th and 6th centuries the oasis passed through the hands of the Chionites, Kidarites and Hephthalites, and from the 560s the Turkic Khaganate. Political overlords came and went, but Samarkand remained the richest city of Sogdiana: its merchants planted communities along caravan routes all the way to China and made Sogdian the lingua franca of Silk Road commerce. Local Zoroastrianism lived side by side with Buddhism, Manichaeism and Christianity.

The finest witness to this cosmopolitan world is the cycle of Afrasiyab murals, painted in the mid-7th century under King Varkhuman. The arrival of Arab armies in 712 brought the independent history of Sogdian Samarkand to a close.

8th–7th century BC (debated)

A town rises on Afrasiyab

Samarkand's first town grew up on the Afrasiyab plateau, ringed by a mud-brick wall 5.5 km long and about 7 metres thick. Every brick bore a mason's mark, a sign that a strong local authority organised the work. The date is disputed. The 2,750th-anniversary celebrations of 2007 rested on radiocarbon dates from the deepest layers, while the French archaeologist Frantz Grenet places the first rampart at roughly 650–550 BC. In 2025, citing excavations at nearby Koktepa, the Samarkand regional council declared the city 3,000 years old.

Afrasiyab Afrasiyab Museum

329–328 BC

Alexander the Great at Maracanda

In 329 BC Alexander the Great took Maracanda, the chief city of Sogdiana. A revolt soon broke out under the Sogdian leader Spitamenes: the rebels besieged the Macedonian garrison in the citadel and wiped out a relief column on the Polytimetus (the Zarafshan), one of Alexander's worst setbacks in Asia. In 328 BC, at a banquet in Maracanda, a drunken Alexander ran his old comrade Cleitus through with a spear. Spitamenes was killed by his nomad allies later that year; his daughter Apama went on to marry Seleucus I, founder of the Seleucid dynasty.

Afrasiyab

c. AD 312–313

Letters that never reached Samarkand

In 1907 Aurel Stein found a bundle of paper letters in Sogdian in the ruins of a watchtower near Dunhuang. Usually dated to 312–313, they appear to be a mailbag lost in transit. One letter, wrapped in silk, was addressed to Samarkand, more than 3,000 km to the west. The writers report on the goods and debts of Sogdian merchants in China, on family troubles, and on the sack of Luoyang by the Huns. The 'Ancient Letters' are among the oldest documents in the Sogdian language and vivid proof that Samarkand's trading network reached China by the 4th century.

560s–630s

Sogdiana under the Turkic Khaganate

In the 560s the Turkic Khaganate, allied with Sasanian Iran, crushed the Hephthalites, and Sogdiana, Samarkand included, passed under the khagans. The Turks were mostly content with tribute and safe trade routes, while Sogdian merchants became their diplomats and scribes: in 568 the Sogdian Maniakh led a Turkic embassy to Constantinople. The Western Turkic khagan Tong Yabghu (618–630) gave his daughter in marriage to the ruler of Samarkand, and Turkic and Sogdian elites drew ever closer. The Chinese monk Xuanzang, passing through around 630, described a wealthy city of skilled craftsmen that its neighbours took as their model.

mid-7th century (c. 650s–660s)

The Hall of the Ambassadors

In the mid-7th century, under King Varkhuman of Samarkand, the reception hall of an aristocratic residence on Afrasiyab was covered in superb wall paintings. The west wall shows envoys from many lands, among them Chaganiyan, Chach, China and Korea; a Sogdian inscription records the Chaganiyan ambassador assuring Varkhuman that he knows 'the gods of Samarkand and the writing of Samarkand'. The south wall shows a Nowruz procession honouring the ancestors, the north wall scenes from the Chinese court, the east wall Indian themes. Scholars still debate the overall meaning. The murals were found by chance during road building in 1965 and are now in the Afrasiyab Museum.

Afrasiyab Afrasiyab Museum

712–1220

Early Islamic era

From the Arab conquest to Genghis Khan: Samarkand as capital of the Samanids and Karakhanids, a centre of paper-making and learning, and the largest, richest city of Transoxiana.

The Arabs and a new faith

In 712 Qutayba ibn Muslim took Samarkand and imposed a treaty on its king, Ghurak. Unlike elsewhere in Sogdiana, the Arabs kept a permanent garrison and administration here, and a mosque replaced the city's temple. The Sogdian nobility resisted for decades, often in alliance with the Turgesh. In 776–783 Samarkand was drawn into the revolt of al-Muqanna, the 'Veiled Prophet'. Excavations on Afrasiyab have uncovered a vast palace of the Arab governor built in the 740s, schoolboys' exercises in Arabic writing, and the earliest chess pieces ever found in an archaeological context. Abu Muslim, leader of the Abbasid revolution, made Samarkand his residence in the 750s; work then began on the Divar-i Qiyamat, a rampart that enclosed the oasis for some 35 km.

Samanids and Karakhanids: a city of scholars

In 819 Samarkand passed to the Samanids and remained the dynasty's chief seat until 892. Samarkand paper became famous across the Islamic world, theologians such as al-Maturidi and Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi worked here, and New Persian took shape as a literary language. Tenth-century geographers described Samarkand's Sogd as an unbroken expanse of gardens.

From 999 power passed to the Turkic Karakhanids, and from 1040 to 1212 Samarkand was the capital of their western khanate. Ibrahim Tamghach Khan endowed a madrasa and a hospital, and in the 1070s the city welcomed Omar Khayyam. Around the grave of Qusam ibn Abbas the Shah-i-Zinda complex began to grow, while city life gradually moved south of Afrasiyab towards the bazaar quarters.

The Khwarazmshahs and the eve of disaster

In the late 11th century Samarkand fell into the Seljuk orbit: in 1089 Sultan Malik-Shah took the city and captured its Karakhanid ruler, Ahmad Khan. After Sultan Sanjar's defeat at Qatwan near Samarkand in 1141, the Karakhanids became vassals of the Qara Khitai. In 1212 the Khwarazmshah Ala al-Din Muhammad drowned a local revolt in blood, made Samarkand his capital and strengthened its defences. On the eve of the Mongol invasion, according to the Chinese Taoist Changchun, the oasis held more than 100,000 households, making Samarkand one of the most populous cities in Central Asia.

712

Qutayba ibn Muslim takes Samarkand

In 712 Qutayba ibn Muslim, governor of Khurasan, captured Samarkand after a siege. Under a treaty with King Ghurak the city agreed to pay heavy tribute, accept an Arab garrison and allow a mosque to be built; the sources say the temple idols were burned. Elsewhere in Sogdiana the Arabs left local rulers in place, but in Samarkand they installed a permanent administration. Resistance smouldered on: in 722 Devashtich, lord of Panjikent, was captured in his fortress on Mount Mugh and executed, while Ghurak, steering skilfully between the Arabs and the Turgesh, kept his throne until his death in 737 or 738.

Afrasiyab Afrasiyab Museum

751 (tradition) – 10th century

Samarkand paper

Tradition holds that Chinese craftsmen captured at the battle of Talas in 751 revealed the secret of paper-making in Samarkand. The story goes back to the 11th-century writer al-Thaalibi, and modern historians treat it with caution: Sogdians were writing letters on paper by the 4th century, and the early 8th-century documents from Mount Mugh include paper ones. Either way, 'Samarkand paper' soon became famous across the Islamic world; al-Thaalibi wrote that it had displaced Egyptian papyrus and parchment because it was finer and more practical. Today the Meros workshop in Konigil again makes paper from mulberry bark by the old method.

Konigil Meros Paper Mill

819–999

Seat of the Samanids

In 819 Ghassan ibn Abbad, governor of Khurasan, rewarded Nuh ibn Asad, grandson of Saman Khuda, for helping to crush the revolt of Rafi ibn Layth by giving him Samarkand to govern. The city thus became the first seat of the Samanid dynasty, and Nasr ibn Ahmad (864–892) also ruled from here. After 892 the capital moved to Bukhara, but Samarkand remained one of the largest and wealthiest cities of Transoxiana. The 10th-century geographer al-Istakhri described Samarkand's Sogd as eight days' journey of unbroken gardens and fields, 'the most fruitful of all the lands of God'.

944

Death of Imam al-Maturidi

In 944 the great theologian Abu Mansur al-Maturidi died in Samarkand. Born in the Maturid quarter near the city, he studied Hanafi law and kalam under Samarkand's scholars. Al-Maturidi founded a school of theology that gave reason an important role, and Maturidism is still counted, alongside Ash'arism, among the main creedal schools of Sunni Islam. His Kitab al-Tawhid and his Qur'an commentary survive. He was buried in the Chokardiza cemetery, and in 2000 a new memorial complex was built over his grave. Samanid Samarkand produced many other jurists too, among them Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi.

Imam al-Maturidi Memorial Complex

1040s–1070s

Karakhanid capital: madrasa, hospital and Khayyam

From 1040 Samarkand was the capital of the Western Karakhanid khanate. Its founder, Ibrahim Tamghach Khan (1040–1068), built a madrasa at state expense and founded a hospital for the poor; two endowment deeds of 1066 describe them, naming caravanserais and places such as the Chorsu. Around 1070 the young Omar Khayyam arrived: under the patronage of the city's chief judge, Abu Tahir, he wrote his celebrated treatise on algebra, and the khan Shams al-Mulk is said to have honoured him with a seat beside him on the throne. The Karakhanid palace in the Afrasiyab citadel has yielded murals of a Turkic archer-guard.

Afrasiyab Shah-i-Zinda

1212

Khwarazmshah Muhammad makes Samarkand his capital

From the mid-12th century the Karakhanids of Samarkand were vassals first of the Qara Khitai and then of the Khwarazmshahs. In 1212 the Karakhanid Uthman Khan rose against the Khwarazmshah Ala al-Din Muhammad. The city was stormed with great brutality, Uthman was executed and the Karakhanid line came to an end. Muhammad made Samarkand his capital and began rebuilding the Friday mosque on Afrasiyab from scratch. Archaeologists found that the work stopped abruptly, its piers never rising above the foundations, as funds were diverted to strengthening the citadel and gates against the Mongol threat. Eight years later those walls faced the army of Genghis Khan.

Afrasiyab

1220–1370

Mongol era

From the devastation of 1220 to the rise of Timur: Afrasiyab was abandoned, the city shifted south, recovered slowly within the Chagatai realm and, with the Sarbadar revolt, reached the threshold of a new age.

The catastrophe of 1220

In the spring of 1220 Genghis Khan, having taken Bukhara, arrived before Samarkand. Khwarazmshah Muhammad had counted on a large garrison to hold his capital, but the city surrendered after a siege of only days, while the citadel held out a little longer. Much of the population was killed or enslaved, and the craftsmen were deported to Mongolia and later to Simali near Beijing, where they introduced viticulture and Samarkand brocade. The Taoist monk Changchun, who stayed here a year later, wrote that only a quarter of the people remained.

With its workforce gone, Afrasiyab and its demanding water system were abandoned. City life moved to the southern districts that had been growing since the 11th and 12th centuries, the site of today's historic centre.

Under the Chagatai khans

Samarkand became part of the realm of Chagatai, Genghis Khan's son. The Mongols relied on Chinese and Khitan officials to run it and tolerated Christian bishoprics. In the later 13th century the city was plundered again during wars between rival khans. Yet trade slowly revived: Marco Polo, writing from hearsay, called Samarkand 'a very large and splendid city'.

Ibn Battuta, who visited in 1333, noted that the city had lost its walls and gates and that many palaces lay in ruins, but the bazaar was busy and the shrine of Qusam ibn Abbas magnificent. From the mid-14th century new mausoleums began to rise along the lane of Shah-i-Zinda.

The Sarbadars and a new power

Between the 1340s and the 1360s the Chagatai realm broke apart: Turco-Mongol emirs ruled Transoxiana, while the khans of Moghulistan raided it again and again from the east. When Ilyas Khoja besieged Samarkand in 1365, it was not the emirs but ordinary townspeople, the Sarbadars, who saved the city. Led by the madrasa student Mawlanazada, they barricaded the streets and picked off the enemy in ambushes. The following year Emir Husayn had their leaders executed, but Timur, a Barlas emir from Kesh, protected Mawlanazada and won the townspeople's respect. These events cleared the way for Timur, and in 1370 Samarkand became the capital of a new empire.

March 1220

Genghis Khan sacks Samarkand

In March 1220 Genghis Khan, fresh from taking Bukhara, arrived before Samarkand. Khwarazmshah Muhammad had trusted in a strong garrison, but the Mongols lured a sortie into an ambush and destroyed it. Within days the clergy persuaded the townspeople to open the gates, though the citadel held out a while longer. According to the historian Juvayni, the city was stripped bare and 30,000 craftsmen and as many young men were carried off. Changchun, arriving a year later, recorded that only a quarter of the inhabitants were left. Cut off from its water supply, Afrasiyab was abandoned and the city moved south.

Afrasiyab

1333

Ibn Battuta in Samarkand

In 1333 the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta reached Samarkand and called it 'one of the greatest and finest of cities, and most perfect of them in beauty'. He also noted that it had lost its walls and gates and that many palaces lay in ruins. He described riverside gardens watered by norias and townspeople relaxing in the evenings on benches by the water. Outside the city he visited the grave of Qusam ibn Abbas, cousin of the Prophet, and admired its splendid mausoleum and hospice. His account is one of the most valuable glimpses of Samarkand and Shah-i-Zinda as they recovered from the Mongol catastrophe.

Shah-i-Zinda

1365–1366

The Sarbadars defend Samarkand

In 1365 Ilyas Khoja, khan of Moghulistan, defeated Emir Husayn and Timur at the 'Battle of the Mire' near Tashkent and advanced on Samarkand. The emirs abandoned the city, but the Sarbadars, literally 'heads on the gallows', men ready to die, organised its defence under the madrasa student Mawlanazada, the artisan Abu Bakr Kalavi and Khurdak Bukhari. They barricaded the streets and cut down the invaders in ambushes, and an epidemic among the Moghul horses forced Ilyas Khoja to retreat. In 1366 Husayn and Timur returned and executed the Sarbadar leaders; only Mawlanazada was spared, at Timur's request.

1370–1501

Timurid era

Timur's capital and Ulugh Beg's seat of learning: the golden age when Samarkand became the grandest city of Central and Western Asia and Bibi-Khanym, Gur-e-Amir and the Registan were built.

A city meant to be the capital of the world

In 1370 Timur, now master of Transoxiana, made Samarkand his capital. From 1371 a new wall with six gates enclosed the city, and a citadel with the four-storey Kok Saray palace rose in the west. Timur brought architects, painters and craftsmen from conquered lands, from Isfahan and Shiraz, Tabriz and Damascus, and named the surrounding villages Baghdad, Damascus, Misr (Cairo), Shiraz and Sultaniya. Beyond the walls he laid out gardens with palaces and fountains, among them Bagh-i Dilkusha, Bagh-i Bihisht and Bagh-i Shamal.

The great building boom began after his return from the western campaigns in 1396: the Bibi-Khanym Friday mosque, a covered bazaar street linking it to the Registan, mausoleums of Timurid princesses along Shah-i-Zinda, and Gur-e-Amir. Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, the Castilian envoy who visited in 1404, marvelled at the ceaseless construction and at bazaars full of goods from China, India and the Kipchak steppe.

Ulugh Beg: a capital of science

After Timur's death Shah Rukh moved the capital to Herat, and from 1409 Samarkand was governed by his son Mirzo Ulugh Beg. Under him the city became one of the world's leading centres of science: a madrasa, a khanqah and a caravanserai went up on the Registan, and an observatory outside the town. The astronomical tables known as the Zij-i Sultani, produced by Jamshid al-Kashi, Qadi Zada al-Rumi, Ali Qushji and dozens of others, were later studied in Europe as well. In 1434–1435 Shah-i-Zinda gained its monumental entrance portal. In 1449 Ulugh Beg was murdered on the orders of his own son, Abd al-Latif.

The last Timurids

Under Abu Said (1451–1469) the Naqshbandi sheikh Khoja Ahror wielded great political influence; the Ishratkhona and Aksaray mausoleums date from these years, and the poet Alisher Navoi studied in Samarkand for several years. Under Abu Said's son Sultan Ahmad (1469–1494) the city, guided by Khoja Ahror, remained relatively calm. By the end of the century feuding Timurid princes had weakened the city: the young Babur took it three times and lost it three times. In 1500–1501 Muhammad Shaybani Khan seized Samarkand, and the Timurid age came to an end.

1370

Timur makes Samarkand his capital

In April 1370 a kurultai at Balkh proclaimed Timur ruler of Transoxiana, and he chose Samarkand as his capital. Not being a descendant of Genghis Khan, he never took the title of khan, styling himself emir and güregen, 'son-in-law of the khan'. The next year the city received a new wall with six gates and a citadel in the west, whose four-storey Kok Saray held the treasury, workshops and a prison. Timur resettled craftsmen from conquered lands in Samarkand and gave the surrounding villages the names Baghdad, Damascus, Misr, Shiraz and Sultaniya: his capital was meant to outshine the great cities of the world.

Amir Temur Monument Registan

1399–1404

The Bibi-Khanym Mosque goes up

In 1399, back from his Indian campaign, Timur founded a colossal Friday mosque in Samarkand. Its outer walls measured 167 by 109 metres, with a 35-metre entrance portal, a main dome rising to about 40 metres and galleries on more than 400 marble columns. People named it after Timur's senior wife, Saray Mulk Khanum, known as Bibi-Khanym; the madrasa and mausoleum opposite were her own foundation. Returning in 1404, Timur judged the portal too modest and had it torn down and rebuilt. Built in haste, the mosque soon began to crumble, and an earthquake in 1897 brought down the main arch; reconstruction began in 1974.

Bibi-Khanym Mosque Bibi-Khanym Mausoleum Siyob Bazaar

1403–1405

Gur-e-Amir, tomb of the Timurids

In 1403 Timur's grandson and heir, Muhammad Sultan, died, and beside his madrasa the Isfahani architect Muhammad ibn Mahmud raised a mausoleum under a ribbed turquoise dome. In February 1405, having set out to invade China, Timur himself died at Otrar. He was buried not in the crypt prepared in his home town of Kesh but in this mausoleum, which became the family tomb of the Timurids: his sons Shah Rukh and Miranshah, his grandsons Muhammad Sultan and Ulugh Beg, and his spiritual guide Mir Sayyid Baraka lie here too. The dark green jade slab over Timur's grave was brought back by Ulugh Beg from a campaign in Moghulistan in 1425.

Gur-e-Amir Rukhabad Mausoleum Ak-Saray Mausoleum

1417–1420

Ulugh Beg Madrasa, the Registan's first building

Mirzo Ulugh Beg, who governed Samarkand from 1409, built a madrasa on the Registan in 1417–1420. It is the oldest surviving building of the ensemble: a two-storey block of 81 by 56 metres with domed lecture halls and minarets at the corners. The star-shaped geometric patterns on its portal recall the ruler-scholar's passion for astronomy. Mathematics and astronomy were taught alongside theology; Qadi Zada al-Rumi was a professor here, and tradition says Ulugh Beg lectured in person. The poet Abd al-Rahman Jami later studied here. Opposite stood Ulugh Beg's khanqah and the Mirzoi caravanserai.

Ulugh Beg Madrasa Registan

1420s–1449

Ulugh Beg's observatory and the Zij-i Sultani

In the 1420s Ulugh Beg built his observatory on Kuhak hill outside Samarkand; most sources date it to 1424–1429. The heart of the three-storey cylindrical building was a giant meridian arc with a radius of over 40 metres. Jamshid al-Kashi, Qadi Zada al-Rumi and Ali Qushji worked here. By 1437 the team had completed the Zij-i Sultani, whose catalogue of 1,018 stars is regarded as the finest between Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe; it put the sidereal year at 365 days, 6 hours, 10 minutes and 8 seconds. After Ulugh Beg's murder in 1449 the observatory was destroyed; the archaeologist Vasily Vyatkin rediscovered its remains in 1908.

Ulugh Beg Observatory

1497–1512

Babur and Samarkand

In the Timurid struggle for the throne, the young ruler of Fergana, Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, captured Samarkand three times. In 1497, after a seven-month siege, the 15-year-old Babur entered the city, but held it for only a hundred days. In the autumn of 1500 he wrested Samarkand from Shaybani Khan, yet after defeat in 1501, a siege and famine he had to give his sister Khanzada Begum to Shaybani in marriage and leave. In October 1511 Babur took the city a third time, only to lose it again in 1512. His memoir, the Baburnama, describes Samarkand's gardens, the Kok Saray and Ulugh Beg's observatory and madrasa in loving detail.

1501–1868

Age of the khanates

The Shaybanids, Ashtarkhanids and Manghits: Samarkand became the second city of the Bukharan state, the Registan took its three-madrasa form, and after the deep decline of the 18th century the city slowly revived.

The Shaybanids: from capital to provincial seat

Having taken Samarkand in 1500–1501, Muhammad Shaybani Khan made it the capital of a new Uzbek state. He built a great madrasa, and poets such as Kamal al-Din Binai and Muhammad Salih wrote at his court. Under Kuchkunji Khan (1510–1530), whose mother Rabia Sultan Begum was Ulugh Beg's daughter, Samarkand remained the khan's seat: masters from Herat restored its madrasas, and in 1519 Sharaf al-Din Yazdi's Zafarnama, the official history of Timur, was translated into Turkic.

In 1533 Ubaydullah Khan moved the centre of the state to Bukhara, and Abdullah Khan II (1557–1598) made the shift permanent. Samarkand became the khanate's second city and a provincial capital, yet it kept its prestige: governors such as Abd al-Latif Khan (1540–1551) were generous patrons of poets and scholars.

The Registan completed

In 1599 power passed to the Ashtarkhanid (Janid) dynasty. Under Imam Quli Khan (1611–1642) the governor of Samarkand, Yalangtush Bahadur, transformed the city: the Sher-Dor (1619–1636) and Tilya-Kori (1646–1660) madrasas were built on the Registan, turning the square into the celebrated three-madrasa ensemble. The sun-faced lions of Sher-Dor and the gilded mihrab of Tilya-Kori became Samarkand's best-known emblems. Shrines such as Khoja Abdi Darun were enlarged in the same period, and the Mughal emperors of India, Babur's descendants, kept faith with their ancestral city by sending money for the upkeep of Gur-e-Amir.

Decline and revival

The 18th century was one of the darkest in Samarkand's history. In the 1720s civil war between the Manghit and Kenegas tribes, Kazakh raids, locusts and famine ruined the city, and its population all but vanished. In 1740 the army of Nadir Shah entered Samarkand. Recovery began under the Manghit dynasty: Emir Shah Murad (1785–1800) resettled people from surrounding districts and built new neighbourhoods and mosques. After an earthquake in 1817–1818 Emir Haydar had the Ulugh Beg Madrasa repaired, and in 1843 the Bukharan Jewish quarter received official status. Even so, in 1868 the city had only about 55,000 inhabitants.

1500–1501

Shaybani Khan takes Samarkand

In 1500 Muhammad Shaybani, khan of the Uzbeks of the Kipchak steppe, took Samarkand from the Timurid Sultan Ali Mirza. Babur recaptured the city that autumn, but in spring 1501 he was defeated at Sar-i Pul and, after a long siege, abandoned Samarkand. Shaybani Khan made it the capital of his new state and built a madrasa bearing his name, where he took part in learned debates himself; poets such as Kamal al-Din Binai and Muhammad Salih wrote at his court, and the khan composed Turkic verse of his own. He fell fighting Shah Ismail near Merv in 1510, but his dynasty ruled Transoxiana until the end of the 16th century.

1619–1660

Sher-Dor and Tilya-Kori complete the Registan

Under the Ashtarkhanids, Samarkand's governor Yalangtush Bahadur gave the Registan its present form. In 1619–1636 the Sher-Dor Madrasa rose opposite Ulugh Beg's madrasa, on the site of his khanqah. Its portal shows lions chasing deer, each with a human-faced sun rising behind it, a startling motif in an Islamic tradition that usually avoids depicting living creatures. In 1646–1660 the Tilya-Kori madrasa and Friday mosque replaced the Mirzoi caravanserai; its gilded prayer-hall dome and mihrab earned it the name Tilya-Kori, 'gold-covered'. With that, three madrasas framed the square on three sides.

Registan Sher-Dor Madrasa Tilya-Kori Madrasa

1720s–1800

Decline, and revival under Shah Murad

In the 1720s civil war in the Bukhara khanate, raids by Kazakh tribes driven south by the Dzungars, locusts and famine laid Samarkand waste. According to the sources the city was almost deserted, and nomads kept their livestock in the Registan madrasas over the winter. In 1740 the army of Nadir Shah occupied the city; legend says he carried Timur's jade tombstone off to Iran and later ordered it returned. Revival came under the Manghits: Emir Shah Murad (1785–1800) resettled people from surrounding regions, Iranians deported from Merv revived silk weaving, and new neighbourhoods and mosques appeared. Even so, in 1868 Samarkand had only about 55,000 inhabitants.

Registan Gur-e-Amir

1868–1917

Russian Empire

From the conquest of 1868 to 1917: Samarkand became a provincial capital of Russian Turkestan, a European town grew up beside the old city, the railway arrived and the Jadid reformers launched their movement for modern education.

1868: conquest and siege

Having taken Tashkent in 1865, the Russian Empire went to war with the Emirate of Bukhara in the spring of 1868. On 1 (13) May General Konstantin von Kaufman's troops routed the emir's army on the Chupan-Ata heights, and the next day Samarkand opened its gates. In early June townspeople and the forces of the begs of Shahrisabz besieged the small garrison in the citadel for a week, until Kaufman returned and lifted the siege. Under the peace treaty that followed, Bukhara became a Russian dependency, and Samarkand became the centre of the Zarafshan district and, from 1887, of Samarkand Oblast. General Alexander Abramov became the district's first governor; the citadel was turned into a Russian fort, and Timur's Kok Saray palace was demolished in the 1880s.

A tale of two cities

West of the old town, along broad boulevards radiating from the citadel, a new European city took shape: government offices, churches, gymnasiums, banks and hotels, later the St Alexius Cathedral and a Catholic church. In 1888 the Trans-Caspian Railway reached Samarkand and tied it to the Russian market. The city grew ever more diverse, with Russian, Armenian, Polish and Tatar quarters and a growing Bukharan Jewish neighbourhood.

Samarkand became an open book for European scholarship. In 1871–1872 its monuments were photographed for the Turkestan Album, Vasily Bartold and Nikolai Veselovsky studied its history, and in 1908 Vasily Vyatkin found Ulugh Beg's observatory. Early in the 20th century Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky took colour photographs of the Registan and Shah-i-Zinda. An earthquake in 1897 brought down the main arch of the Bibi-Khanym Mosque.

The Jadids

In the early 20th century Samarkand became one of the main centres of the Jadid reform movement in Turkestan. Its leading figures included Mahmudkhoja Behbudi and the playwright Hoji Muin. Behbudi wrote textbooks for new-method schools, composed Padarkush (The Patricide), regarded as the first Uzbek play, in 1911, and in 1913 launched the newspaper Samarqand and the journal Oyina. The revolutions of 1917 abruptly changed the course of these efforts, and Behbudi himself was executed in Karshi by the Emir of Bukhara's men in 1919.

2 (14) May – 8 (20) June 1868

Samarkand passes to the Russian Empire

On 1 (13) May 1868 General Konstantin von Kaufman's troops defeated the army of the Emir of Bukhara on the Chupan-Ata heights; the next day the city opened its gates and became part of the Russian Empire. In early June, when Kaufman marched off against the emir with his main force, the begs of Shahrisabz and rebellious townspeople besieged the garrison of some 650 men in the citadel from 2 to 8 (14–20) June. Among the defenders was the painter Vasily Vereshchagin. Kaufman returned and lifted the siege. Under that year's peace treaty Bukhara became a Russian dependency and Samarkand the centre of the new Zarafshan district.

Chupan-Ata Hill and Mausoleum

May 1888

The railway reaches Samarkand

In May 1888 the Trans-Caspian military railway, built eastward from the Caspian shore under General Mikhail Annenkov, reached Samarkand by way of Bukhara. For several years the city was the end of the line, until the track was extended to Tashkent and the Fergana Valley in the late 1890s. The railway tied Samarkand to the Russian market, boosted the trade in cotton, dried fruit and silk, and encouraged new industries. It also made the journey far easier for European travellers, scholars and photographers, and a new district grew up around the station.

1917–1991

Soviet period

First capital of Soviet Uzbekistan, a wartime refuge and a city of sweeping restorations: Samarkand grew into an industrial and scientific centre and celebrated its 2,500th anniversary in 1970.

A republican capital

Soviet power was established in Samarkand in 1917–1918, and the city became part of the Turkestan ASSR. After the national delimitation of 1924, bilingual Samarkand, where both Uzbek and Tajik were spoken, was placed in the Uzbek SSR and served as its capital from 1925 to 1930. Fayzulla Khojaev's government sat here, and in 1927 the Uzbek Pedagogical Institute opened, forerunner of today's Samarkand State University. In 1930 the capital moved to Tashkent, but Samarkand remained a cultural centre: Sadriddin Ayni, a founding figure of modern Tajik and Uzbek literature, lived and wrote here for many years.

The Soviet era was a time of contradictions for the city's heritage. Mosques and madrasas were closed in the 1920s and 1930s, and monuments such as the madrasa of Shaybani Khan and the Kok Gumbaz (1937) were pulled down. Yet scientific restoration also began: in 1932 engineers working to a design by Vladimir Shukhov and M. F. Mauer used a purpose-built rig to straighten the leaning minaret of the Ulugh Beg Madrasa.

The war years

War broke out two days after the tombs of Gur-e-Amir were opened in June 1941. Thousands of refugees, factories and colleges were evacuated to Samarkand from the western USSR: from 1942 to 1944 the Military Medical Academy from Leningrad worked here, the Artillery Academy came from Moscow, and the city filled with hospitals. Thousands of Samarkand men went to the front. Gerasimov's work also confirmed the chroniclers' report that Ulugh Beg had been beheaded; the Timurids were reburied in December 1942.

Restoration and jubilee

After the war Samarkand became a major industrial and tourist centre. In 1965 the 'Hall of the Ambassadors' murals were discovered on Afrasiyab, and a second minaret of the Ulugh Beg Madrasa was straightened. Large-scale restoration, begun in 1967, peaked with the 2,500th-anniversary celebrations of 1970: the Registan, Gur-e-Amir and Shah-i-Zinda were restored, the Afrasiyab Museum was built and an Institute of Archaeology opened in the city. Work on rebuilding the Bibi-Khanym Mosque started in 1974. These campaigns saved the monuments, though some specialists criticise them as heavy-handed reconstruction. In 1982 a state historical and architectural museum-reserve was created and the protected boundaries of the historic centre were formally drawn.

1925–1930

Samarkand, capital of Soviet Uzbekistan

The Uzbek SSR, created by the national delimitation of 1924, had Bukhara as its capital for a few months before the seat of government moved to Samarkand in April 1925. The government of Fayzulla Khojaev and the republic's institutions settled here, and a republican hospital was built to designs by German architects. The Uzbek Pedagogical Institute, opened in 1927, later became the Uzbek State University and, from 1961, the Alisher Navoi Samarkand State University. In August 1930 the capital moved to Tashkent, closer to the cotton fields of the Fergana Valley and to industry.

University Boulevard

June 1941 – December 1942

Opening Timur's tomb, and the 'curse of Tamerlane'

In June 1941 a government commission led by Tashmukhamed Kary-Niyazov, with the writer Sadriddin Ayni among its members, opened the tombs of Gur-e-Amir. The anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov reconstructed Timur's face from his skull and confirmed the chroniclers' accounts of his lameness: his right leg and right arm had been injured. Timur's coffin was opened on 19–20 June, and two days later Germany invaded the Soviet Union. A legend grew that the conqueror's spirit had been disturbed, though stories of a curse inscribed on the tomb have no reliable confirmation. In December 1942 Timur and his descendants were reburied with Islamic rites.

Gur-e-Amir

1970

Samarkand turns 2,500

In 1970 Samarkand's 2,500th anniversary was celebrated with great fanfare. The idea came from the academician Ibrahim Muminov and was backed by the republic's leader, Sharof Rashidov. For the jubilee the Afrasiyab Museum was built, a statue of Ulugh Beg unveiled, a two-volume History of Samarkand published and an Institute of Archaeology founded in the city, while the Registan, Gur-e-Amir and Shah-i-Zinda underwent sweeping restoration. The date was a convention based on the research of the time; later excavations suggested an even older city, and in 2007 Samarkand marked its 2,750th anniversary. The debate continues.

Afrasiyab Museum Registan Shah-i-Zinda

1991 – bugun

Independence era

In independent Uzbekistan, Samarkand joined UNESCO's World Heritage List, celebrated its 2,750th anniversary and became a city of major international gatherings, from the SCO summit to the UNESCO General Conference.

The first years of independence

When Uzbekistan became independent in 1991, Samarkand entered a new era as a regional capital. Honouring historical figures became a pillar of state policy: the 600th anniversary of Ulugh Beg's birth was marked in 1994 and the 660th of Amir Timur's in 1996, when a statue of Timur was raised in the city centre. Since 1997 the Registan has hosted the biennial Sharq Taronalari international music festival. The mausoleum of Imam al-Maturidi and, in the wider region, the Imam al-Bukhari memorial complex were rebuilt. In 2001 the city was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List, and in 2007 it celebrated its 2,750th anniversary.

A city of tourism and summits

From 2011 the Afrosiyob high-speed train linked Tashkent and Samarkand. In 2016 Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's first president and a native of Samarkand, was buried near the Hazrat Khizr Mosque. Reforms in the years that followed, easier visa rules and new hotels sent visitor numbers soaring.

In 2022 the city hosted the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the Silk Road Samarkand tourist complex opened. The 25th General Assembly of the UN World Tourism Organization met here in 2023, the first European Union–Central Asia summit in April 2025 and the UNESCO General Conference that autumn. In September 2026 Samarkand hosted the 46th Chess Olympiad, where Uzbekistan's open team took gold.

Heritage and the age debate

The monuments have been extensively restored since independence, but the balance between the historic setting and new construction remains a concern for UNESCO and specialists. International archaeological teams continue to dig at Afrasiyab, Koktepa and other sites in the oasis, and the museums keep filling with new finds. The debate over the city's age goes on too: on 24 July 2025 the Samarkand regional council, citing new conclusions of the Uzbek-French expedition at Koktepa and Afrasiyab, fixed Samarkand's age at 3,000 years. The figure depends on how the archaeology is read: the French archaeologist Frantz Grenet dates Afrasiyab's first city wall to the 7th–6th centuries BC.

December 2001

'Samarkand – Crossroads of Cultures' joins the World Heritage List

In December 2001, at the 25th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Helsinki, 'Samarkand – Crossroads of Cultures' was inscribed on the World Heritage List. The property of about 1,123 hectares covers the historic centre and its landmark monuments: the Registan, Bibi-Khanym, Gur-e-Amir, Shah-i-Zinda and Ulugh Beg's observatory. The Committee cited three criteria: Samarkand's architecture is a masterpiece of Islamic creativity; ensembles such as Bibi-Khanym and the Registan shaped Islamic architecture from the Mediterranean to the Indian subcontinent; and the city illustrates the key stages of Central Asian history from the 13th century to the present.

Registan Bibi-Khanym Mosque Gur-e-Amir Shah-i-Zinda Ulugh Beg Observatory

August 2007

Samarkand at 2,750

On 20 October 2005 the 33rd session of the UNESCO General Conference resolved to mark Samarkand's 2,750th anniversary. The date rested on radiocarbon analysis, carried out in France, of samples from the deepest layers of Afrasiyab excavated by the Uzbek-French archaeological mission. The celebrations took place on the Registan at the end of August 2007, attended by national leaders, diplomats and UNESCO officials, and the city was extensively spruced up for the occasion. The question of Samarkand's age was not settled, however: in 2025 the regional council, citing new excavations, declared the city 3,000 years old.

Registan Afrasiyab

15–16 September 2022

The SCO summit in Samarkand

On 15–16 September 2022 Samarkand hosted the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's Council of Heads of State. The leaders of China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan attended, along with heads of observer and guest states, and Iran took a major step towards full membership. Just before the summit, in August 2022, the Silk Road Samarkand tourist complex opened on the edge of the city, with a congress hall, hotels and the Eternal City, a quarter of craft workshops. From then on Samarkand became a venue for major international gatherings.

Silk Road Samarkand Eternal City (Boqiy Shahar)

30 October – 13 November 2025

The UNESCO General Conference meets in Samarkand

From 30 October to 13 November 2025 Samarkand hosted the 43rd session of the UNESCO General Conference. It was the first time since the 1985 session in Sofia that the organisation's supreme body had met away from its Paris headquarters; member states had agreed on the venue unanimously in 2023. Meeting at the Silk Road Samarkand congress centre, the session elected Egypt's Khaled El-Enany as Director-General on 6 November. Alongside it, an international conference titled 'Samarkand: Three Millennia of Heritage' presented findings that the city's history spans at least 3,000 years.

Silk Road Samarkand