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Bukhara

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Bukhara

Bukhara (/bʊˈxɑːrə/ buu-KHAR) is the seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan by population, with 280,187 residents as of 1 January 2020. It is the capital of Bukhara Region.

The Bukhara region has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time. Located on the Silk Road, the city has long served as a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion. Bukhara served as the capital of the Uzbek states such as the Khanate of Bukhara, the Emirate of Bukhara and later the Bukhara People’s Soviet Republic. It was the birthplace of the scholar Imam Bukhari. The city has been known as "Noble Bukhara" (Bukhārā-ye sharīf). Bukhara has about 140 architectural monuments. UNESCO has listed the historic center of Bukhara (which contains numerous mosques and madrasas) as a World Heritage Site.

The exact name of the city of Bukhara in ancient times is unknown. The whole oasis was called Bukhara in ancient times, and probably only in the tenth century was it finally transferred to the city.

According to some scholars, the name dates back to the Sanskrit vihāra (Buddhist monastery). This word is very close to the word in the language of the Uyghur and Chinese Buddhists, who named their places of worship the same way. Very few artifacts related to Buddhism have survived into the modern day in the city. But, numerous Arabic, Persian, European and Chinese travellers and historians noted the place and Transoxiana itself to be once populated by mostly Buddhists and few Zoroastrians. Indeed, the first Islamic text on Bukhara relates to the first Arab invader of Bukhara, Ubaidullah bin Ziad, who noted Bukhara to be a Buddhist country with Buddhist monasteries ruled by a queen regent acting on behalf of her son.

According to other sources (such as Encyclopædia Iranica), the name Bukhara is possibly derived from the Sogdian βuxārak ('Place of Good Fortune'), a name for Buddhist monasteries.

In the Tang dynasty, and other successive dynasties of Imperial China, Bukhara was known under the name of Bǔhē (捕喝), which has been replaced in Chinese by the modern generic phonetic spelling Bùhālā (布哈拉).

Between the 19th and 20th centuries, Bukhara was known as Bokhara in the English publications as exemplified by the writings and reports on the Emirate of Bukhara during the Great Game.

Muhammad ibn Jafar Narshakhi in his History of Bukhara (completed AD 943–44) mentions:

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