Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is located in Central Asia, north of Turkmenistan and south of Kazakhstan, with mostly flat-to-rolling sandy desert and broad irrigated river valleys along the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. The climate is mostly mid-latitude desert with long, hot summers and mild winters, with semiarid grassland in the east. Tashkent serves as the capital, and Uzbekistan has a population of approximately 37.02 million people who speak Uzbek, Russian, and Tajik.

Uzbekistan has a lower-middle-income Central Asian economy and is a key exporter of natural gas, cotton, and gold, with ongoing reform efforts to reduce state-owned sector dominance. Key industries include textiles, food processing, machine building, metallurgy, mining, hydrocarbon extraction, and chemicals. The country possesses abundant natural resources including natural gas, petroleum, coal, gold, uranium, silver, copper, lead, zinc, tungsten, and molybdenum. Uzbekistan is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world.