Nukus

About Nukus

Nukus is the sixth-largest city in Uzbekistan and the capital of the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan. The population of Nukus as of 1 January 2022 was 329,100. The Amu Darya river passes west of the city. Administratively, Nukus is a district-level city, that includes the urban-type settlement Karatau.

The city is best known for its Nukus Museum of Art.

The name Nukus comes from the old tribal name of the Karakalpaks, Nukus (in Persian: نوکاث Nūkās, "New Kath"). Nukus developed from a small settlement in 1932 into a large, modern Soviet city with broad avenues and big public buildings by the 1950s.

The city's isolation made it host to the Red Army's Chemical Research Institute, a major research and testing center for chemical weapons. In 2002 the United States Department of Defense dismantled the Chemical Research Institute, the major research and testing site for the Novichok agent, under a $6 million Cooperative Threat Reduction program.

Turtkul city became the administrative center of the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan when the Soviet authorities came to power. However, in the 20s, Amu Darya, which was 12 km...

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.