Sirdaryo Region

Geography and nature

Sirdaryo Region lies in central Uzbekistan on the left bank of the Syr Darya, bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Tashkent Region to the east, Tajikistan to the south and Jizzakh Region to the west. At 4,280 km² it is, Tashkent city aside, the smallest region in the country, home to 946,000 people at the start of 2026. It is divided into eight districts and three cities of regional status: Gulistan, Shirin and Yangiyer.

Most of it is taken up by the Hungry Steppe, or Mirzachul, an undulating plain on the old terraces of the Syr Darya, rising from 230 m in the north to 400–450 m in the centre and 600–650 m in the south, with the broad river valley along the east. The climate is harshly continental and dry: July averages 27–29 °C and summer peaks reach 45 °C, winter frosts can fall to −30 °C, and rainfall is only 180–220 mm a year. From November to March the fierce Bekobod wind blows at 20–25 m/s, reaching 40 m/s at Boyovut. Much of the irrigated land is saline, so shelter belts and drainage networks have been built. In spring poppies and snowdrops bloom on the steppe among camelthorn, wormwood, tamarisk and saxaul, and the wildlife includes porcupines, foxes, wolves, jackals, wild boar and sandgrouse.

History

In antiquity the area belonged to the Kangju state and later to the principality of Ustrushana, which Chinese chronicles and Arab geographers described as stretching from Khujand to Samarkand. Ancient settlements such as Eski Khovos grew up along the streams in the south. The steppe itself stayed waterless for centuries: Shahrukh and Ulugh Beg tried to bring a canal from the Syr Darya in the 15th century, and Abdullah Khan II built domed cisterns along the caravan road in the 16th.

Large-scale reclamation began in the late 19th century: in 1895 a canal reached Mirzachul, the Samarkand–Tashkent railway was built, and in 1897 the first cotton was sown. The settlement by the station was called Golodnaya Step (Hungry Steppe), then Mirzachul from 1922 and Gulistan from 1961. The Farkhad hydropower station was built by mass volunteer labour in 1943–1948, and the 1950s–60s brought the South Hungry Steppe canal and the new towns of Yangiyer and Gulistan. The region was created on 16 February 1963, with Yangiyer as its first capital, replaced by Gulistan that November.

Towns

The region’s towns grew up almost entirely in the 20th century as the steppe was tamed. The capital, Gulistan (“land of flowers”), rose around the railway station on the site of Achchiqquduq, a hamlet of just 40 households in the 19th century; on the Ulkan Soylik mound within the city archaeologists found the grave of a 10th–12th-century Oghuz chieftain with his helmet, sword and arrowheads. Yangiyer (“new land”) was founded in 1957 where the Great Uzbek Highway crosses the South Hungry Steppe canal. Shirin began in 1943 as a settlement for the builders of the Farkhad station and became a town in 1972; its name is thought to come from the Shirinqiz stream that runs below the Farhad rock. The region also has the towns of Sirdaryo and Baxt.

What to see

The region’s most striking historic monument is the 16th-century Ogʻoch Sardoba in Sardoba District. The Farkhad station near Shirin recalls the great wartime people’s construction, while the neighbouring Syrdarya power station is the largest in Central Asia. Gulistan has the regional museum of history and culture, the Alim Khojaev music and drama theatre, the St Nicholas Church of 1945 and the city’s main mosque. Nature lovers can explore the riverside woodlands of the Syr Darya and the steppe as it greens in spring.

People and economy

Most people are Uzbeks, alongside Tajiks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Russians and members of more than 70 other nationalities. This is one of the country’s main cotton regions, also growing wheat, vegetables, melons and lucerne, with well-developed livestock farming; for years its melons and onions were shipped to the Urals, Siberia and the Russian Far East. Industry centres on cotton ginning and power: the Syrdarya plant generates about a fifth of Uzbekistan’s electricity.

Getting there

Gulistan is about 120 km south-west of Tashkent. The Tashkent–Samarkand railway and the Great Uzbek Highway (M39) cross the region, so trains and buses to Samarkand, Bukhara and the south stop here, and suburban electric trains run from Tashkent to Gulistan.