Romitan District

About the district

Romitan District was created in 1926 and contains two towns, Romitan and Gazli, with Romitan as its centre. The 10th-century historian Narshakhi described Romitan as a fortress older than Bukhara, and archaeologists worked in the town in 1972. The district has 18 archaeological and 5 architectural monuments, the best known being the site of ancient Romitan, the shrines of Ali Romitani and Boboyi Samosi — two of the 'seven saints' — and the Chorikulboy bridge.

Gazli, out in the Kyzylkum, was founded in 1956 as a natural-gas town on a field estimated at about 500 billion m³. Earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 and 7.3 in April and May 1976 and a magnitude 7.2 shock in 1984 badly damaged it. On 1 January 2026 the district had 155,300 residents.