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Zarafshon city

city · Navoiy Region

Zarafshon city

Built in the 1960s beside the Muruntau gold deposit in the middle of the Kyzylkum, Zarafshon is known as Uzbekistan's gold capital.

Photo: Upirimqulov · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

About the city

Zarafshon means 'gold-bearing'. Construction began in the early 1960s, with 1965 regarded as the official year of foundation, and on 16 January 1967 it became an urban-type settlement. It was built for workers at the plants mining and processing gold from the Muruntau deposit, which supplied about 30% of all Soviet gold.

Today it is home to the Central Mining Administration of the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company. From 1995 to 2006 the Muruntau operation was run by the Zarafshan-Newmont joint venture. Zarafshon airport has flights to Tashkent. On 1 January 2026 the city had 92,100 residents. The Muruntau pit lies about 33 km east of town, in Tomdi District. The city also takes in the settlement of Muruntau, and it is twinned with Clinton, Mississippi, in the United States.

Sources (4)
  1. siat.stat.uz
  2. uz.wikipedia.org
  3. en.wikipedia.org
  4. en.wikipedia.org

Zarafshon city

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Zarafshon city

From Zarafshan to other cities

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CityRoad, kmBy carBy trainFlightBus
Navoi
Navoiy Region		 214 2 h 48 min — — 2 routes
Tashkent
Tashkent (city)		 687 9 h 52 min — — 1 route

Zarafshon city

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Zarafshon city

Government offices

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  1. Civil registry · Zarafshon city Zarafshon City Civil Registry Office No. 4, Zarafshon
    1008

Zarafshon city

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Navoiy Region