Kulob

Kulob
Kulob Welcoming Gate
Kulob Location in Tajikistan
Coordinates: 37°54′33″N 69°46′55″E / 37.90917°N 69.78194°E / 37.90917; 69.78194
Country	Tajikistan
Province	Khatlon
District	Kulob district
Population
• Total	100,000

Kulob (Tajik: Кӯлоб, Kûlob/Kūloв), also Kulyab (Russian: Куляб, Kuljab), is a city in Kulob District, Khatlon Province, Tajikistan. Located 203 km south-east of the capital Dushanbe on the Yakhsu River (a right tributary of Panj), it is one of the largest cities in the country and has an estimated population of 100,000. The town is served by Kulob Airport.

The historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari refers to the city as early as 737AD, although its founding is said to have been much earlier. Throughout its history, Kulob was known by the name Khatlān or Khatlon in modern Tajik, with its modern name only about 250 years old.

Part of the Khanate of Bukhara since the 16th century (the Emirate of Bukhara since the 18th century), the city changed its name from Khatlon to Kulob in 1750. Following the Russian conquest of Central Asia and the creation of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR in 1929, Kulob became one of the largest cities in the republic.

During the civil war in the country in the early 1990s, the city served as the main base of the Popular Front militias. Danghara, a village in the Kulob area, is the birthplace of Tajikistan's president Emomali Rahmon.

In September 2006, Kulob celebrated its 2700th anniversary.

After Tajikistan's independence in 1991, Kulob was one of the three cities in the country where the Russian 201st Motor Rifle Division was deployed (the others are Dushanbe and Qurghonteppa). Following a number of scandals with local residents, Russia unexpectedly pulled its troops from Kulob in November 2015, effectively abandoning the base there.