URBANIZATION IN THE TASHKENT AGGLOMERATION AND OTHER MAJOR CITIES OF UZBEKISTAN: A COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL-DEMOGRAPHIC APPROACH

Abstract

Abstract: This thesis compares the historical and demographic trajectories of the Tashkent agglomeration and Uzbekistan’s other major urban centres, with Samarkand, Bukhara, and the Fergana Valley cities as comparative cases. It argues that Tashkent’s primacy reflects its role as the political and economic capital, Soviet-era industrial and administrative investment, and continued concentration of services. Secondary cities, by contrast, combine long-established regional functions with population growth across wider provincial territories. The comparison also highlights a methodological issue: administrative population counts do not necessarily measure the functional extent of an agglomeration, while changes in settlement classification can alter reported urbanization independently of physical urban growth. Official statistics show that Tashkent city’s permanent population passed three million in 2023; this figure describes the city proper and should not be treated as the population of the whole metropolitan area. The study concludes that urban policy and research should compare cities at consistent spatial scales and distinguish demographic growth from administrative and morphological change.