Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south, Turkmenistan and the autonomous republic of Karakalpak stan to the south-west.

What is now Uzbekistan was in ancient times part of the Iranian-speaking region of Transoxiana and Turan. The Early Muslim conquests during the 7^th century, converted most of the people, including the local ruling classes, into adherents of Islam. During this period, cities such as Samarkand, Khiva, and Bukhara began to grow rich from the Silk Road and witnessed the emergence of leading figures of the Islamic Golden Age. All of Central Asia, was gradually incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 19th century, with Tashkent becoming the political center of Russian Turkestan. In 1924, national delimitation created the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic as an independent republic within the Soviet Union. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991.

Uzbekistan has a diverse cultural heritage due to its layers of history and strategic location. Its official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in a modified Latin alphabet and spoken natively by approximately 85% of the population.  Russian has widespread use as an inter-ethnic tongue and in governance.   Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians (5.4%), Tajiks (4.0%), Kazakhs (3.0%) and others (6.5%).   Muslims constitute 79% of the people while 5% follow Russian Orthodox Christianity and 16% of the population follow other religions or are non-religious.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbekistan