The Republic of Uzbekistan gained independence from the former Soviet Union on September 1, 1991. But according to Eurasianet, the most recent census in Uzbekistan was conducted in 1989. Former Uzbek President Islam Karimov (ruled from the end of the Soviet period through September 2016) was reportedly not keen on a census due to Uzbekistan’s high emigration (I will note for whatever it is worth that I have worked on a decent number of asylum cases featuring individuals originally from Uzbekistan who moved to Russia). Karimov’s successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, is more keen on holding a census. According to the Eurasianet report, Uzbekistan planned to conduct a census in 2022 but abandoned those plans due to a bug going around at the time. I had shared the September Eurasianet report (linked above) in issue 246 of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. Now I share census update from the government of Uzbekistan:
The population and agriculture census in the Republic of Uzbekistan will be conducted from January 15 to February 28, 2026, and the census data will be collected as of January 15, 2026.
Barring any unforeseen events, we are now just a few weeks away from the first-ever census in the Republic of Uzbekistan.