Uzbekistan is home to the International Kurash Association.

The ancient martial art of Kurash is native to the country and involves competitors trying to throw their opponent on the back or sides to gain victory or points respectively.

The event was first included in the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar and Uzbekistan claimed gold in the less than 90kg weight category with Davlat Choriev winning the medal.

Other popular sports include football, where in 1994 Uzbekistan took the victory in the 1994 Japan Asian Games.

The team is considered to be the strongest in the Central Asia region.

There is also a strong boxing contingent in the country; the Uzbekistan Boxing Federation is an active member of the International Amateur Boxing Federation in Switzerland.

The team won two gold medals in the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics and brought home eleven gold medals from the 2006 Doha Asian Games.

The Aral Sea is located to the north of the country; otherwise Uzbekistan is a dry landlocked country.

Much of the country is vast desert and mountainous areas with some semiarid grassland in east.

Temperatures range from 40 °C in the summer and 0 °C in the winter with annual precipitation levels of around 7.9 inches.

Muslim 88% (mostly Sunnis), Eastern Orthodox 9%, other 3%

Uzbekistan's cultural heritage includes monuments designed in the national architectural tradition: the mausoleum of the Samanid ruler Isma'il I in Bukhara, the great mosques and mausoleums of Samarkand and many other fine tombs, mosques, palaces, and madrasahs.

Recently there has been an ongoing effort to take many of the smaller, badly damaged mosques and renovate them to former glory.

Musical tradition throughout southern Central Asia provides a distinctive classical form of composition in the great cycles of maqoms handed down from master performers to apprentices.

Television and radio as well as concert halls offer maqom cycles in live performances.