Tajikistan

Tajikistan,[a] officially the Republic of Tajikistan,[b] is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital and most populous city. Tajikistan is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor.

The territory was previously home to cultures of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, including the city of Sarazm,[15] and was later home to kingdoms ruled by people of faiths and cultures, including the Oxus civilization, Andronovo culture, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Islam. The area has been ruled by empires and dynasties, including the Achaemenid Empire, Sasanian Empire, Hephthalite Empire, Samanid Empire, and Mongol Empire. After being ruled by the Timurid Empire and Khanate of Bukhara, the Timurid Renaissance flourished. The region was later conquered by the Russian Empire and subsequently by the Soviet Union. Within the Soviet Union, the country's borders were drawn when it was part of Uzbekistan as an autonomous republic before becoming a full-fledged Soviet republic in 1929.[16]

On 9 September 1991, Tajikistan declared itself an independent sovereign nation as the Soviet Union was disintegrating. A civil war was fought after independence, lasting from May 1992 to June 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability and foreign aid have allowed the country's economy to grow. The country has been led by Emomali Rahmon since 1994, who heads an authoritarian regime and whose human rights record has been criticised.[17][18]

Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces. Tajiks form the ethnic majority in the country,[19] and their national language is Tajik, a variety of Persian.[20] Russian is used as the official inter-ethnic language. While the state is constitutionally secular, Islam is nominally adhered to by 96% of the population. In the Gorno-Badakhshan oblast, there is a linguistic diversity where Rushani, Shughni, Ishkashimi, Wakhi and Tajik are some of the languages spoken. Mountains cover more than 90% of the country. It is a developing country with a transitional economy that is dependent on remittances, and on production of aluminium and cotton. Tajikistan is a member of the United Nations, CIS, OSCE, OIC, ECO, SCO, CSTO and a NATO PfP partner.