11 ATLASES

History of Tajikistan in maps

Tajikistan as it appears in 11 interactive history atlases, from 1206 to 2000: Badakhshan, Tajikistan, Russian Turkestan, Soviet Central Asia. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.

What was Tajikistan before it was Tajikistan? The sections below follow this land through every era covered by the Maps of History atlases: who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed. Each line links to the dated map. Modern borders serve as an approximation, as each atlas says on the map itself.

Badakhshan (mod. Tajikistan) · Mongol Empire

MONGOL EMPIRE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Tajikistan · Industrial Revolution

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Tajikistan · Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia

Tajikistan, the poorest Soviet republic, fell into civil war soon after independence. The old communist elite fought an opposition that included Islamists and democrats. Estimates of the dead range from about 20,000 to 100,000, most killed in 1992; around a million people were displaced. Russian troops guarded the Afghan border. A peace agreement signed in Moscow in 1997 ended the war, which is hatched on the 1993 map.

MEIJI JAPAN AND POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Russian Turkestan (mod. Tajikistan) · Russian Revolution

Russia’s capture of Khujand in 1866 brought the north under its rule. The centre and south came under Russian control through the Bukharan protectorate, while the Pamirs were settled only by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1895. The Tajik lands belonged to the emirate of Bukhara and Russian Turkestan and were among the last areas reconquered. Here the Basmachi insurgency was fiercest, continuing on and off into the mid-1920s as the civil war lingered in Central Asia.

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Russian Turkestan (mod. Tajikistan) · Indian independence

In the Pamirs, the Great Game was surveyed to a finish. The 1895 boundary commission drew Afghanistan’s Wakhan corridor as a panhandle between the two empires, ensuring that Russia and British India would nowhere touch. Basmachi rebels fought Soviet power in these valleys into the 1930s, while the Raj watched from Gilgit. The corridor still appears on modern maps, a surviving border drawn to keep empires apart.

INDIAN INDEPENDENCE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Tajikistan · WWI

WWI: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Soviet Central Asia (mod. Tajikistan) · Chinese Revolution

CHINESE REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Tajikistan (Tajik SSR from 1929) · Stalin’s Soviet Union

In 1924 Tajikistan was an autonomous republic inside the Uzbek republic. It gained the status of a union republic in 1929, when its capital, the market village of Dushanbe, became Stalinabad. Resistance to Soviet rule continued in the mountains into the early 1930s; the Soviets called the fighters the Basmachi. The Union’s highest summit stood in the Pamir range and was named Stalin Peak in 1933.

STALIN’S SOVIET UNION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Tajikistan · Road to WW2

ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Tajikistan · Cold War

COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Soviet Central Asia (mod. Tajikistan) · Mao’s China

MAO’S CHINA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Related

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• Mongol Empire timeline and maps
• Industrial Revolution timeline and maps
• Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia timeline and maps
• Russian Revolution timeline and maps
• Indian independence timeline and maps
• WWI timeline and maps