From ancient times Central Asia has been the source or scene of invasions, struggles for empire, inter-tribal warfare and commerce along the ancient trading route known as the Silk Road. The home of several Turkic tribes, Central Asia was once part of the vast Persian Empire. It was conquered and overrun by a succession of Mongol invaders such as Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. The region was re-conquered in the Middle Ages by Persians of the great Arab empire and the people began gradually converting to Islam. sp, although there is tremendous ethnic and linguistic complexity, the people have a very strong religious identity in Islam. In other words, to be Uzbek, to be Tajik, to be Baluch, etc. is to be Muslim.

For the countries of the former Soviet Union the situation is even more complex. Stalin used the principle of divide and conquer, moving millions of people from thier homes to other ethnic regions to maintain Soviet control. In addition to that, he created artificial boundaries that we now know as individual countries. Thus there are Tajiks in Uzbekistan and Uzbeks in Tajikistan and so on. Many of the people from these groups also fled to Afghanistan, so there are Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmen in Afghanistan.

For that reason, we have emphasized the ethnic and linguistic identifications of these peoples. See menu below. But the table under that, organized by country, also shows in which countries these various groups can be found.