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Region
Samarkand
Timur's capital and the most photographed place in Central Asia. Roughly 2,750 years of continuous settlement, and an ensemble of tiled monuments that no other city on the Silk Road can match.
- Administrative centre
- Samarkand
- Area
- 16,770 km²
The Registan at golden hour
What to see
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The Registan
Three madrasahs facing one square, built across three centuries.
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Shah-i-Zinda
A narrow avenue of tombs, each façade tiled by a different workshop.
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Ulugh Beg's Observatory
The surviving arc of a 15th-century sextant cut into bedrock.