The Fergana Valley's largest city — Babur's birthplace, the silk road's eastern Uzbek terminus, and lagman noodles pulled to order since the 15th century
Andijan is Uzbekistan's fourth-largest city and the economic capital of the Fergana Valley — a densely populated agricultural plain that has been one of Central Asia's most productive regions since antiquity. The city is best known internationally for the 2005 Andijan massacre, but it is also the birthplace of Babur (1483), founder of the Mughal Empire — the Timurid prince who went on to conquer India and whose memoirs (the Baburnama) are one of the great works of Central Asian literature. Andijan's bazaar culture is extraordinary: the Jahon Bazaar is one of the largest and most authentic mar…
Andijan has been inhabited since at least the 1st century CE and was a significant stop on the Silk Road trading route through the Fergana Valley. It was part of the Timurid Empire when Babur was born here in 1483; Babur's father Omar Sheikh Mirza was the ruler of Fergana. The city was conquered by the Uzbek Shaybanid dynasty in 1504 — the event that drove Babur westward toward Kabul and ultimately India. Under the Khanate of Kokand (18th–19th century) Andijan was the most important commercial city of the Fergana Valley. Russia annexed the region in 1875. The 2005 Andijan massacre — when gove…