Uzbekistan profile - Timeline
A chronology of key events
1st century BC - Central Asia, including present-day Uzbekistan, forms an important part of the overland trade routes known as the Great Silk Road linking China with the Middle East and imperial Rome.
7th-8th centuries - Arabs conquer the area and convert its inhabitants to Islam.
9th-10th centuries - Persian Samanid dynasty becomes dominant and develops Bukhara as important centre of Islamic culture. As it declines, Turkic hordes compete to fill the vacuum.
13th-14th centuries - Central Asia conquered by Genghis Khan and becomes part of Mongol empire.
14th century - Mongol-Turkic ruler Tamerlane establishes empire with Samarkand as its capital.
18th-19th centuries Rise of independent emirates and khanates of Bukhara, Kokand and Samarkand.
1865-76 - Russians take Tashkent and make it capital of Turkestan, incorporating vast areas of Central Asia. They also annex emirate of Bukhara and khanates of Samarkand, Khiva and Kokand.
1917 - Tashkent Soviet established following Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
1920 - Tashkent Soviet ousts emir of Bukhara and other khans.
1918-22 - New Communist rulers close down mosques and persecute Muslim clergy as part of secularization campaign.
1921-24 - Reorganisation of regional states results in the creation of Uzbekistan and its neighbours.
Resettlement of minorities
1930s - Soviet leader Stalin purges independent-minded Uzbek leaders, replacing them with Moscow loyalists.
1944 - Some 160,000 Meskhetian Turks deported from Georgia to Uzbekistan by Joseph Stalin.
1950s-80s - Cotton production boosted by major irrigation projects which, however, contribute to the drying up of the Aral Sea.
1966 - Devastating earthquake destroys much of capital Tashkent.
1970s-1980s - Uzbek Communist chief Sharaf Rashidov ensures the promotion of ethnic Uzbek over Russian officials. He falsifies cotton harvest figures in scandal exposed under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost.
1989 - Islam Karimov becomes leader of Uzbek Communist Party.
Violent attacks take place against Meskhetian Turks and other minorities in the Fergana Valley. Nationalist movement Birlik founded.
1990 - Communist Party of Uzbekistan declares economic and political sovereignty. Islam Karimov becomes president.
1991 - Karimov initially supports the attempted anti-Gorbachev coup by conservatives in Moscow. Uzbekistan declares independence and, following the collapse of the USSR, joins the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Karimov returned as president in direct elections in which few opposition groups are allowed to field candidates.
1992 - President Karimov bans the Birlik (Unity) and Erk (Freedom) parties. Members of the opposition are arrested in large numbers for alleged anti-state activities.
1994 - Uzbekistan signs an economic integration treaty with Russia, and an economic, military and social cooperation treaty with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
1995 - Activists from the outlawed opposition party Erk are jailed for allegedly conspiring to oust the government.
Ruling People's Democratic Party - formerly the Communist Party of Uzbekistan - wins general election.
Referendum extends Karimov's term of office for another five years.
1996 - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agree to create a single economic market.
1999 - Bombs in Tashkent kill more than a dozen people. President blames extremist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).
IMU declares "jihad" and demands the resignation of the Uzbek leadership.
Operating from mountain hideouts, IMU fighters launch first in several-year series of summer skirmishes with government forces.
2000 - Karimov re-elected president in election deemed by impartial observers to be neither free nor fair.
US-based Human Rights Watch accuses Uzbekistan of widespread use of torture.
2001 June - Some 70 people are jailed for terrorism following cross-border incursions in the south by Islamic militants in 2000.
Uzbekistan, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan launch Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to tackle ethnic and religious militancy and to promote trade, investment.
Rapprochement with US
2001 October - Uzbekistan allows US to use its air bases for action in Afghanistan.
2002 January - President Karimov wins support for extending the presidential term from five to seven years in a referendum criticised as a ploy to hang on to power.
2002 March - President Karimov visits US. Strategic partnership agreement signed.
2002 August - IMU military leader Juma Namangani reported killed.
2002 September - Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan settle a long-standing border dispute.
2003 May - Tashkent hosts annual meeting of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which expresses disappointment at President Karimov's failure to condemn torture.
Banned Birlik movement hold congress openly for first time in a decade.
2003 June - Erk opposition party holds first formal meeting since it was banned 11 years previously.
2003 December - President Karimov sacks long-standing prime minister Otkir Sultanov, citing country's poorest-ever cotton harvest. Shavkat Mirziyayev replaces him.
2004 March - At least 47 people killed in shootings and bombings. Authorities blame Islamic extremists. Several dozen people are given lengthy jail sentences.
2004 April - European Bank for Reconstruction and Development says it is to slash aid because of Uzbekistan's poor record on economic reform and human rights.
2004 July - Suicide bombers target US and Israeli embassies in Tashkent; third blast hits prosecutor-general's office.
2004 November - Restrictions on market traders spark civil disorder in eastern city of Kokand. Thousands of people are reported to have taken part in street protests.
Turkmen and Uzbek presidents sign agreement on sharing scant water resources.
2004 December - Parliamentary elections: Opposition parties are barred from taking part.
2005 May - Eastern city of Andijan is gripped by unrest. Gunmen storm prison and release inmates, some of whom had been accused of Islamic militancy. Troops open fire on demonstrators. Eyewitnesses report deaths of hundreds of protesters. Government puts overall toll at 190.
2005 August - Upper house of parliament votes to evict US forces from air base at Khanabad used for the campaign in Afghanistan.
2005 November - Supreme Court convicts 15 men of having organised Andijan unrest and jails them for 14-20 years.
Agreement signed on closer military cooperation with Russia.
2006 March - Sanjar Umarov, head of the Sunshine Uzbekistan opposition movement, is jailed for 11 years - later reduced to eight - for "economic crimes". The group had criticised the Andijan crackdown and urged economic reform.
Rights activist Mukhtabar Tojibayeva, a critic of the Andijan crackdown, is jailed for eight years for "economic crimes".
2007 January - President Karimov's seven-year term expires.
2007 August - EU eases the sanctions imposed following the crushing of the Andijan unrest, but emphasises its concerns about Uzbek human rights.
2007 December - Islam Karimov gains another term following presidential elections condemned as a sham by opponents and impartial observers.
2008 March - Uzbekistan allows US limited use of its southern Termez air base for operations in Afghanistan, partially reversing its decision to expel US forces from the Khanabad base in 2005.
2008 July - Representative of Human Rights Watch organisation Igor Vorontsov expelled.
2008 October - EU further eases sanctions imposed in response to the 2005 Andijan violence.
2009 February - President Karimov confirms that the US will be allowed to transport supplies through Uzbekistan to troops in Afghanistan.
2009 October - The EU lifts the arms embargo that it imposed in 2005 after the Andijan violence.
Tension with neighbours
2009 December - Uzbekistan announces plans to withdraw from a Soviet-era power grid having set up new power lines for its own use. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the poorest nations in the region, rely heavily on gas and electricity supplies sent through the grid and face shortages.
2010 February - Three men are convicted of murdering Uzbekistan's most prominent theatre director Mark Weil in 2007. They said they had killed him in response to his portrayal of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in his play Imitating the Koran.
2010 June - Uzbekistan briefly accommodates ethnic Uzbek refugees fleeing communal violence in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. Closes refugee camps within weeks and forces inhabitants back across border.
2012 June - Government announces plans to sell off hundreds of state assets in a drive to expand the private sector.
Uzbekistan agrees to allow NATO to remove its military vehicles and equipment through its territory as NATO-led forces speed up their withdrawal from Afghanistan.
2012 September - Government strips largest mobile phone operator, Russian-owned Uzdunrobita, of its license to operate and arrests several managers. Swiss police begin a related money-laundering investigation that eventually involves President Karimov's elder daughter, Gulnara.
2013 October - The authorities begin closing down businesses and organisations linked to Gulnara Karimova, who responds by using Twitter to attack rivals in the Uzbek power structure.
Media rights groups express concern at the brief detention of journalist Sergey Naumov while investigating child labour in the cotton harvest in the northwestern city of Urgench.
2014 January - Swiss prosecutors begin to investigate President Karimov's elder daughter Gulnara in a money-laundering probe.
2014 February - Gulnara Karimova is placed under house arrest.
2014 September - Uzbek prosecutors say Gulnara Karimova has been charged with belonging to a crime group that plundered £40bn ($65bn) in assets.
2014 December - Four parties - all supporting President Karimov - compete in parliamentary elections.
2015 March - President Karimov is re-elected with 90% of the vote in presidential elections. International observers criticise the lack of genuine political alternatives.
2015 November - The authorities release prominent dissident and former member of parliament Murod Juraev after 21 years in prison.
2016 August - President Karimov's daughter Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, says her father is in intensive care after suffering a brain haemorrhage.
2016 September - President Karimov dies.
2016 December - Shavkat Mirziyoyev wins presidential election.
2017 February - First commercial flight between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in more than 20 years, following the death of Uzbek president, Islam Karimov, who considered Tajikistan an enemy.
2018 January - Long-term security chief General Rustam Inoyatov, considered as powerful as the head of state, is dismissed.