Uzbekistan has been an independent state since 1991 when it broke away from the Soviet Union but mapping still follows patterns established in the Soviet era. Topographic maps are on the Gauss conformal transverse cylindrical projection, Krassovsky ellipsoid.
Soviet military topographic mapping of Uzbekistan is available at the following scales: 1:1,000,000 (8 sheets, complete coverage, published 1969-1990); 1:500,000 (20 sheets, complete coverage, published 1986-1990); 1:200,000 (117 sheets, complete coverage, published 1981-1992); 1:100,000 (369 sheets, complete coverage, published 1956-1991); 1:50,000 (1,294 sheets, complete coverage, published 1962-1994) and city (1:10,000 to 1:25,000) topographic mapping of 16 major cities from Andizhan (Andijan) to Urgench published between 1975 and 1991. These products are available in print, digital raster and digital vector GIS formats from East View Geospatial.
Following independence the Chief Administration of Geodesy, Cartography and State Cadastral Survey of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan, (Glavnoe Upravlenie Geodezii, Kartografii i Gosudarstvennogo Kadastra pri Kabinete Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan) assumed the role of the national mapping agency with headquarters in Tashkent, and is known as Uzgeodezkadastr. The Uzbek Aerogeodetic Enterprise had been responsible for map compilation prior to independence, and continues to produce official mapping, which is printed in the Tashkent Cartographic Factory, the only significant official map printing plant in any of the former Soviet Central Asian republics.
It is planned to convert Soviet mapping to new Uzbek editions with Russian and Uzbek place names, and to revise coverage on a six-year cycle, with the exception of steppe areas, where a twelve-year revision period is envisaged. Uzgeodezkadastr has also published new smaller-scale mapping since independence. This includes political maps of each oblast, with place name indices on the reverse, published at 1:500,000 scale, and 1:1,000,000 scale two-sheet administrative mapping using a political base. A Russian town map of the capital Tashkent was produced in the early 1990s by Glavnoe Upravlenie Geodezii Kartografii (GUGK), now Federal’naya Sluzhba Geodezii i Kartografii Rossii (Roskartografija).
Earth science mapping of Uzbekistan was produced by Russian agencies, notably Vserossiiskoi nauchno-issle-dovatel’skii geologicheskii Institut (VSEGEI) in St. Petersburg. Geological and tectonic maps were compiled at 1:1 500,000 scale for the Republic. The Institute of Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology in the Uzbek Academy of Sciences publishes groundwater and minerals mapping, including nine themes at 1:1,000,000 scale, and a number of thematic atlases of parts of the country. The national body responsible for earth science mapping is the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Geology and Mineral Resources.
Following independence a number of agencies in the Uzbek Academy of Sciences in Tashkent have continued to compile mapping. In the 1980s the National Space Center for Natural Resource Studies in Tashkent compiled numerous 1:500,000 scale thematic map sets of the country, as well as coverage of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, using remotely sensed imagery and digital mapping.
The Soviet Academy of Sciences (now Rossiskaja Akademija Nauk (RAN)) sponsored various thematic maps of Uzbekistan, including the national atlas, published in two volumes in 1982 and 1985, with physical themes in the first and socio-economic mapping in the second.
In the early 1990s the Institute of Geography in the Academy of Sciences worked on the Complex atlas of the natural protection of Uzbekistan, as well as compiling an atlas of cotton growing and of medical geography. The State Designing Institute of Land Use (UZGIPROZEM) compiles agricultural and soil maps and atlases of the country, such as the Agro-industrial complex atlas of Uzbekistan, published in the mid-1980s.
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