Central Asia

Columns: City | Country | Population | Information
Kabul | Afghanistan | 3,895,000 ( 2011 ) | The capital and largest city of Afghanistan . The city of Kabul is thought to have been established between 2000 BCE and 1500 BCE . In the Rig Veda ( composed between 1700-1100 BCE ) , the word Kubhā is mentioned , which appears to refer to the Kabul River . During the 1970 's Kabul was called the Paris of Central Asia | Kokand | Uzbekistan | 209,389 ( 2011 ) | Kokand ( Uzbek : Qo'qon / Қўқон ; Tajik : Хӯқанд ; Persian : خوقند ; Chagatai : خوقند ; Russian : Коканд ) is a city in Fergana Region in eastern Uzbekistan , at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley . It has a population of 192,500 ( 1999 census estimate ) . Kokand is 228 km southeast of Tashkent , 115 km west of Andijan , and 88 km west of Fergana . It is nicknamed City of Winds , or sometimes Town of the Boar | Samarkand | Uzbekistan | 596,300 ( 2008 ) | The second largest city in Uzbekistan and the capital of Samarqand Region . The city is most noted for its central position on the Silk Road between China and the West , and for being an Islamic center for scholarly study . It was here that the ruler Ulugh Beg ( 1394-1449 ) built a gigantic astronomical observatory | Tashkent | Uzbekistan | 2,180,000 ( 2008 ) | The capital and largest city of Uzbekistan . In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times , the town and the region were known as Chach . Tashkent started as an oasis on the Chirchik River , near the foothills of the Golestan Mountains . In ancient times , this area contained Beitian , probably the summer capital of the Kangju confederacy | Kandahar | Afghanistan | 557,118 ( 2015 ) | The second largest city in Afghanistan and the capital of Kandahar province . The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements | Osh | Kyrgyzstan | 243,216 ( 2009 ) | The second largest city of Kyrgyzstan . Osh is also the administrative center of Osh Region , which surrounds the city , even though the city itself is not part of the region , but rather a region-level unit of Kyrgyzstan

Example questions:
Which president 's departure preceded the renaming of the Central Asian city with a population of 1,006,574 ? | Oblast means this in the Central Asian Osh Region ? | What Soviet leader was the Central Asian city with a population of 780,000 named after ? | Who led the Russian forces to destroy a fortress in the Central Asian city in the Kyrgyzstan with a population of 1,027,200 ? | Which mountain 's foothills is the Central Asian city in Kazakhstan with a population of 1,713,220 located ?

Answers:
Nursultan Nazarbayev | Osh Region | Joseph Stalin | Apollon Zimmermann | Trans-Ili Alatau