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Flag of Transoxiana

Transoxiana, also known as Turan, is a historical region of Central Asia encompassing present-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, southern Kyrgyzstan, and southwest Kazakhstan, located between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. It was a satrapy of Achaemenid Persia until Alexander the Great of Macedon conquered the region during the 4th century BC, and Alexander the great renamed the region from Sogdiana to "Transoxiana" as the "land beyond the Oxus"; the Greek settlers left in Transoxiana founded Ai Khanoum and several other cities. It was ruled by the Seleucids, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, Parthia, the Kushan Empire, Sassanid Persia, the White Huns (from the late 5th century to 565), the Sassanids once again, the Gokturks from 705 to 715, the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates from 715 to 819, the Samanid Empire from 819 to 999, the Kara-Khanid Khanate from 999 to 1212, the Khwarezmians from 1212 to 1220, the Mongol Empire from 1220 to 1226, the Chagatai Khanate from 1226 to 1705, the Timurids during the late 14th century, the Emirate of Bukhara from 1785 to 1873, the Russian Empire from 1873 to 1920, the Soviet Union from 1920 to 1991, and its present-day countries from the time of the Dissolution of the Soviet Union. Before the rise of Islam, most Transoxianans were Zoroastrians, with Buddhist, Christian, Manichaean, and Mazdakist minorities; it was extensively Islamized under the Abbasids and the ensuing empires.

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