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Tajikistan
Urbanization
Statistically, Tajikistan is the least urban of all the former
Soviet republics (see table 3, Appendix). By the 1980s, the republic
had nineteen cities and forty-nine "urban-type settlements" (the
term used for populated places developed as part of Soviet planning).
At the time of the first Soviet census, in 1926, when Tajikistan
still was an autonomous republic of Uzbekistan, only 10 percent
of its inhabitants lived in cities. By the 1959 census, urbanization
had risen to 33 percent. This growth reflected not only the development
of Tajikistan in its own right but the resettlement of people
from other parts of the Soviet Union to occupy government, party,
and military positions. It also reflected an influx of political
deportees. Most of the immigrants went to Tajikistan's two largest
cities, Dushanbe and Leninobod. During the period before 1960,
some populated places also were reclassified as urban or incorporated
into an existing city's boundaries, thus creating an impression
of even greater urbanization.
The growth of the urban population continued for most of the
postwar era. Between the 1959 and 1979 censuses, Tajikistan's
urban population more than doubled, while the rural population
increased almost as rapidly. However, by the 1970s the rate of
rural population growth had begun to outstrip that of urban areas.
After reaching a peak of 35 percent in the 1979 census, the proportion
of the urban population declined.
According to the 1989 census, although Tajikistan's urban population
increased by 26 percent in the 1980s, the proportion of urban
inhabitants in the total population declined to 32.5 percent during
that period. By the start of 1991, the republic's five largest
cities, Dushanbe, Khujand, Kulob, Qurghonteppa, and Uroteppa,
accounted for 17 percent of the total population of the republic.
Beginning with the 1979 census, emigration from cities exceeded
immigration into them. In the 1980s, urban immigration also came
predominantly from within Tajikistan rather than from other Soviet
republics, as had been the case in earlier decades. As other ethnic
groups emigrated from Tajikistan more rapidly beginning in the
late Soviet period, the percentage of Tajiks in the cities rose.
Nevertheless, Tajiks in Tajikistan were one of the Soviet nationalities
least likely to move from villages to cities. Those who did so
were usually single men reacting to the scarcity of employment
in rural areas.
Tajikistan's largest city, Dushanbe (which was called Stalinabad
from 1929 to 1961), was a Soviet-era development. Badly battered
in the Russian Civil War of 1918-21, the village experienced a
population drop from more than 3,000 in 1920 to 283 by 1924, and
few buildings remained intact. Nevertheless, in 1924 Dushanbe
was chosen as the capital of the new Tajikistan Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republic. Centrally planned development projects inaugurated
in 1926, 1938, 1965, and 1983 established housing, government
office buildings, cultural facilities, and sports and recreational
facilities, as well as the municipal infrastructure. With the
addition of about 100 factories, Dushanbe also became Tajikistan's
industrial center. It is the headquarters of the republic's radio
and television broadcasting facilities and film studio. Several
institutions of higher education and scholarship are located there.
Soviet-era industrial development projects played a major role
in the growth of cities on the sites of former villages. For example,
Regar, which was established in 1952, is the center of Tajikistan's
vital aluminum industry, as well as several factories dedicated
to other activities. Norak and Yovon (Russian spelling Yavan--site
of a large chemical plant), were developed as industrial centers
near Dushanbe to play specific economic roles in the Soviet system.
Data as of March 1996
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