Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi or O‘zbekiston Jumhuriyati, or Russian:'Республика Узбекистан' , is a country in Central Asia, formerly of the Soviet Union. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. This gives Uzbekistan a status shared only with Europe's Liechtenstein in that it is doubly landlocked, that is, it is surrounded entirely by other landlocked states. The only official language, Uzbek, is a Turkic language, but Russian continues to be widely used, a holdover from Soviet rule. About 1 million Tajiks, an ethnic group closely related to the Persians, inhabit Uzbekistan, making up approximately 4.8% of the population. The word Ozbek means Real/original/true (Oz) Leaders, Nobles (bek).
