Khiva: history, etymology, and interesting facts

The name Khiva (Uzbek Xiva) is of uncertain origin. Local legend attributes the founding to Shem, son of Noah, who supposedly dug a well and named it Kheivak — 'sweet water' — a name later corrupted to Khiva. The historical evidence is thinner: the city is not attested by that specific name in pre-Islamic sources, though the surrounding region — Khorezm (Chorasmia in Greek sources, Khwarezm in Arabic-Persian) — has been named since at least the 6th century BCE.

Khorezm itself derives from Old Iranian xwā-razmī — 'the sunny land'. The region is the delta and lower course of the Amu Darya, and its irrigated oases have supported settlement for millennia.

The Khwarezm region has been inhabited since the Bronze Age. Its fortresses of the Kushan and post-Kushan period — Ayaz Kala, Toprak Kala, Djanbas Kala — still rise out of the desert 60 km north of modern Khiva, and are worth a day trip if you're spending time in the region. The Khwarezmian civilisation was Zoroastrian and produced its own alphabet, its own kings, and — under Al-Biruni's contemporary Shah of Khwarezm — a bilingual court where Persian and Khwarezmian coexisted.

In 1220 the Mongols destroyed the Khwarezmshah state (in a campaign whose provocation was the killing of a Mongol trade delegation at Otrar, in modern Kazakhstan). The region did not recover as a political power until the Uzbek Khanate of Khiva emerged in the 16th century.

The Uzbek Khanate of Khiva was founded in 1512 by Ilbars Khan. From the early 17th century Khiva became the political capital of the region, replacing the older centre at Kunya-Urgench (now in Turkmenistan). Under the Kungrad dynasty (from 1770) the city acquired most of the monuments visible today.

The Khanate was notorious in the 19th century as one of the last slave markets in the world — Persian and Russian captives were sold in its bazaars — until the Russian conquest of 1873 turned it into a protectorate. It remained nominally independent under a Russian resident until the Bolshevik-backed Khorezm People's Soviet Republic was declared in 1920, later merged into Uzbek SSR.

Ichan Kala is a rectangle of about 26 hectares surrounded by mud-brick walls approximately ten metres high, four gates piercing them. Inside, streets are narrow, houses are courtyard-plan, and roughly 50 individual monuments survive: madrasas, palaces, minarets, mosques, mausoleums, caravanserais, a bathhouse (still functioning), and a slave market (no longer functioning).

The signature monument is the Kalta-Minor — the Short Minaret — begun in 1852 by Muhammad Amin Khan. He intended it to be about 80 metres high and visible from Bukhara, 480 kilometres away. He was killed in a Persian campaign in 1855 and the minaret was abandoned at 28 metres. It is tiled in exquisite turquoise and green geometric bands and is the most photogenic stump in Uzbekistan.

Other essentials inside Ichan Kala: the Kunya-Ark citadel (the Khan's fortress, 17th century, still houses the throne room); the Djuma Mosque (10th-century foundations, 213 carved wooden columns, some 1000 years old); the Tash-Hovli palace (1830s, with three inner courtyards); and the mausoleum of Pahlavon Mahmud, patron saint of Khiva.

Khiva sits about 450 km north-west of Bukhara across the Kyzylkum desert. The overland drive is about 6 hours; the alternative is to fly Tashkent–Urgench (about 90 minutes) and drive the 35 km south to Khiva, or take the overnight train Tashkent–Khiva (recently direct, about 20 hours). Most tour itineraries combine Khiva with a Bukhara crossing.

The best time to visit is April–May or September–October — the summer heat in the Khorezm oasis is severe (regular 40°C+), and winter is short but bitterly cold. Sunrise and sunset inside Ichan Kala are the two photography windows of the day; the light gets extraordinary on the tiled walls.