Kuliab

(from 1939 to 1955 and since Dec. 29, 1973, the administrative center of Kuliab Oblast), a city in the Tadzhik SSR, located in the valley of the lakhsu River (Piandzh Basin) at the foot of the Khazratishokh Range, 203 km southeast of Dushanbe, with which it is connected by rail and highway. Population, 40,000 (1970).

Kuliab has a cotton-ginning plant, a vegetable-oil mill, dairy, a meat combine, a milling combine, and enterprises producing building materials. Its educational institutions include a school and an institute of pedagogy and a school of medicine. The city has a musical and dramatic theater. In the past, the city was the capital of Kuliab Province of the Bukhara Khanate, an important trading point on the route from the Gissar Valley to Afghanistan. Kuliab has been a city since 1934. [13–1795–2; updated]