Most of rugged Tajikistan's transportation system was built during the Soviet era, and since that time the system has deteriorated badly because of insufficient investment and maintenance. In 2013, Tajikistan, like many of the other Central Asian countries, was experiencing major development in its transportation sector. Beginning in 2005, a series of major transportation projects begun. The first such project, the Anzob Tunnel, was inaugurated in 2006, providing a year-round road link from Dushanbe to northern Tajikistan.
In 2009 Tajikistan had 26 airports, [1] 18 of which had paved runways, of which two had runways longer than 3,000 meters. [2] Tajikistan has two domestic airlines (Tajik Air and Somon Air) and is also serviced by foreign air companies (mainly Russian). The country's main airport is Dushanbe International Airport which, as of May 2014, had regularly scheduled flights to such major cities as Almaty, Baku, Bishkek, Delhi, Dubai, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Kabul, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Sharjah, Tehran, and Ürümqi among others.
No flights connect Dushanbe with Tashkent. The next largest airports behind Dushanbe are at Khujand and Kulob. [3] As of 2007 air transport was said to be unreliable. [3]
The railroad system totals only 680 kilometres (420 mi) of track, [1] all of it 1,520 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in) broad gauge. The principle segments are in the southwestern region and connect the capital with the industrial areas of the Gissar and Vakhsh valleys and with Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. [4] In 2000 a new line, the Bokhtar – Kulyab railway, was completed and connected the Kulyab District with the central area of the country. [5] Passenger transit through Tajikistan has been hindered by periodic failures of Tajik Railways to pay transit tariffs and by safety issues. [3] Most international freight traffic is carried by train. [5]
It is hoped that a 2009 agreement between the heads of state of Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan will modernize parts of Tajikistan's rail system to allow more trade between Central Asian countries. [6]
This section needs updating!
The total length of roads in the country is 27,800 kilometers, nearly all of which were built before 1991. Automobiles account for more than 90% of the total volume of passenger transportation and more than 80% of domestic freight transportation. [5]
As of 2014 many highway and tunnel construction projects were underway or recently completed. Major projects include rehabilitation of the Dushanbe – Chanak (Uzbek border), Dushanbe – Kulma (Chinese border), Kurgan-Tube – Nizhny Pyanj (Afghan border) highways and construction of tunnels under the mountain passes of Anzob, Shakhristan, Shar-Shar [7] and Chormazak. [8] These were supported by international donor countries. [5] [9] China has invested approximately $720 million for infrastructure improvements in Tajikistan, including the rebuilding, widening and improvement of the road between Dushanbe and Khujand which as of August 2007 is proceeding using equipment, labor, and oversight from China. [10]
In mid-2005 construction began on a bridge across the Panj River to Afghanistan which was funded by the United States and opened in August 2007 [2] and plans called for construction of several other bridges ultimately connecting Tajikistan to warm-water ports to the south. [3]
The Pakistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan Highway, a new 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) long road is planned to pass through the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province and Dushanbe and in 2013 Tajikistan announced that all road construction on its side of the border had been completed.[ citation needed ] According to President Zardari of Pakistan,
... [the] opening up of road links [is] critical to bringing the countries of the region closer together and for increasing trade and people to people contacts for the economic and social benefits of all countries. [6]
Tajikistan's 549 kilometers of gas pipeline bring natural gas from Uzbekistan to Dushanbe and transport gas between points in Uzbekistan across northwestern Tajikistan. Tajikistan also has 38 kilometers of oil pipeline. [1]
Tajikistan has no access to the sea and no navigable inland waterways. [3]
Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It has an area of 143,100 km2 (55,300 sq mi) and an estimated population of 9,749,625 people. Its capital and largest city is Dushanbe. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is separated narrowly from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. The traditional homelands of the Tajiks include present-day Tajikistan as well as parts of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
Tajikistan is nestled between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to the north and west, China to the east, and Afghanistan to the south. Mountains cover 93 percent of Tajikistan's surface area. The two principal ranges, the Pamir Mountains and the Alay Mountains, give rise to many glacier-fed streams and rivers, which have been used to irrigate farmlands since ancient times. Central Asia's other major mountain range, the Tian Shan, skirts northern Tajikistan. Mountainous terrain separates Tajikistan's two population centers, which are in the lowlands of the southern and northern sections of the country. Especially in areas of intensive agricultural and industrial activity, the Soviet Union's natural resource utilization policies left independent Tajikistan with a legacy of environmental problems.
The Armed Forces of the Republic of Tajikistan, also known as the Tajik National Army is the national military of the Republic of Tajikistan. It consists of Ground Forces, Mobile Forces, and the Air Force, with closely affiliated forces including the national guard, border and internal troops.
Transport in Afghanistan is done mostly by road, rail and air. Much of the nation's road network was built in the mid-20th century but left to ruin during the last two decades of that century due to war and political turmoil. Officials of the current Islamic Emirate have continued to improve the national highways, roads, and bridges. In 2008, there were about 700,000 vehicles registered in Kabul. At least 1,314 traffic collisions were reported in 2022.
Dushanbe is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. As of January 2022, Dushanbe had a population of 1,201,800 and that population was largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as Stalinabad, after Joseph Stalin. Dushanbe is located in the Gissar Valley, bounded by the Gissar Range in the north and east and the Babatag, Aktau, Rangontau and Karatau mountains in the south, and has an elevation of 750–930 m. The city is divided into four districts, all named after historical figures: Ismail Samani, Avicenna, Ferdowsi, and Shah Mansur.
The Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, also commonly known as Soviet Tajikistan, the Tajik SSR, or simply Tajikistan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union which existed from 1929 to 1991 located in Central Asia.
Khujand, sometimes spelled Khodjent and known as Leninabad from 1936 to 1991, is the second-largest city of Tajikistan and the capital of Tajikistan's northernmost Sughd province.
Tajik Air is an airline in Tajikistan. It has its head office at Dushanbe International Airport in Dushanbe. The airline's main hub is at Dushanbe International Airport; in the past, it had also retained a secondary focus city at Khujand's Khudzhand Airport.
Terrorism in Tajikistan stems largely from the forces of the political opposition who opposed the comprehensive peace agreement that ended the civil war in 1997. President Emomali Rahmonov and UTO leader Said Abdullah Nuri signed the agreement on 27 June, believing it would bring an end to hostilities. However, dissident Islamist militants led by Tohir Yo‘ldosh and Juma Namangani formed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in 1998, allying with Al-Qaeda and vowing to unite Central Asia as an Islamic state. The latest terror attacks took place in the Qabodiyon District on November 6, 2019, when a policeman and a border guard were killed by several Islamic State militants. 15 terroristi were also killed.
Iran–Tajikistan relations refer to the bilateral relations between Iran and Tajikistan. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the two countries have naturally enjoyed a close and strong relationship with the two often being described as "one spirit in two bodies" by the ex-president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad due to both being Persian-speaking and Iranic countries.
The Anzob Tunnel, Istiqlol tunnel or Ushtur Tunnel is a 5,040 m long tunnel located 80 km (50 mi) northwest of Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe, at an elevation of 2,720 m (8,920 ft). The tunnel is part of the M34 highway and connects the Tajik capital to the country's second largest city, Khujand. The tunnel was opened in 2006 despite being only partially finished. In 2014 Iran's government signed an agreement to finish the tunnel and the tunnel was reopened in late 2015. The tunnel saves drivers at least 4 hours when traveling between Dushanbe and Khujand and allows travelers to avoid having to pass through Uzbekistan.
The population of Afghans in Tajikistan consists largely of Afghan refugees from the various wars which have plagued neighboring Afghanistan. They form the vast majority of all refugees in Tajikistan; the other refugees in the country include a few Uyghurs and Iraqis.
As of March 2017, the total length of Uzbekistan's main railway network is 4,714 kilometres (2,929 mi). A large percentage of the system's track requires major repair. The main line is the portion of the Transcaspian Railroad that connects Tashkent with the Amu Darya. There are rail links with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. Suburban traffic only exists around Tashkent.
Rail transport in Tajikistan is limited, as the railroad system totals only 680 kilometres (420 mi) of non-electrified, single-track railway, all of it 1,520 mm broad gauge. The system connects the main urban centres of western Tajikistan with points in neighboring Uzbekistan. In 1999 a new line connected the southern cities of Bokhtar and Kulob. In 2016, another line connected both cities to the capital Dushanbe, thus linking southern and central railway networks together. The northern branch around Khujand remains physically disconnected from this main Tajik railway network, accessible only through a lengthy transit via Uzbekistan. As of 2017, the passenger service remains limited to infrequent international trains from Dushanbe and Khujand to Moscow, one weekly train from Dushanbe to Khujand as well as a local service between Dushanbe and Pakhtaabad (daily) and Kulyob/Shahrtuz.
The legacy of the Soviet Union lives on in the infrastructure of Central Asia. As it crumbles, or gets patched up, much of what was built in Central Asia is the backbone of the existing infrastructure for transportation, goods delivery and energy distribution. Much of the industrial infrastructure underwent precipitous decline in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, especially in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The roads, railroads and energy lines are thus oriented towards the Russian Federation and away from other regional neighbors, such as China, Afghanistan or Iran.
The Tajik Air and Air Defense Forces is the aerial military service branch of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Tajikistan, which currently consists of 20 helicopters. The force engages in search and rescue missions, as well as military raids.
The 2014 SCO summit was the 13th annual summit of heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation held between 11 and 12 September in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Security was among the top issues for 13th annual summit and all members during the last meeting reached a consensus on fighting against separatism, extremism and terrorism, as well as on safeguarding regional peace and security therefore Afghanistan will be focal point during talks in Dushanbe, claim some diplomats of member countries.
A list of roads in Tajikistan.
Media related to Transport in Tajikistan at Wikimedia Commons