People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time. Located on the Silk Road , the city has long served as a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion.
Bukhara served as the capital of the Khanate of Bukhara , and Emirate of Bukhara. It was the birthplace of the scholar Imam Bukhari. Bukhara has about architectural monuments.
The exact name of the city of Bukhara in ancient times is unknown. The whole oasis was called Bukhara in ancient times, and probably only in the tenth century was it finally transferred to the city. Very few artifacts related to Buddhism have survived into the modern day in the city.
But, numerous Arabic, Persian, European and Chinese travellers and historians noted the place and Transoxiana itself to be once populated by mostly Buddhists and few Zoroastrians. Indeed, the first Islamic text on Bukhara relates to the first Arab invader of Bukhara, Ubaidullah bin Ziad, who noted Bukhara to be a Buddhist country with Buddhist monasteries ruled by a queen regent acting on behalf of her son.
Between the 19th and 20th centuries, Bukhara was known as Bokhara in the English publications as exemplified by the writings and reports on the Emirate of Bukhara during the Great Game.
