Tajikistan

Tajikistan is a landlocked country located in Central Asia. It has an area of 55,251 square miles and a population of 6.8 million (2005 estimate). The capital of the country is Dushanbe, with an approximate population of 700,000. Tajikistan is bordered by China, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and to the north, both Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Over 90 percent of the land is mountainous, with most of the population located around river valleys that flow from glaciers in the Pamir and Fan mountain ranges westward into the Aral Sea Basin. The majority of the population is Tajik, a group strongly tied to the Tajiks of northern Afghanistan and to Iranians, with a sizeable Uzbek minority and small Russian and Kyrgyz minorities. Although the official language of the country ...