State of emergency in Uzbekistan's Karakalpakstan Republic

[GMantis]

Karakalpakstan?  ka-rack-al-pack-stan?  Crackle Pakistan?

Black Hat Country in English.

reading the wik on the place is interesting.  It's suffering from what the Soviets/Russians did to the Aral Sea.  Summer temps are up 10C/18F and winter temps are down by the same amount.  The rate of anemia, respiratory diseases and other health problems has risen dramatically.  But the population has doubled since 1975 and continues to climb steadily.  What's up with that?

High birth rates. Compare with the rest of Uzbekistan, which has increased its population by nearly three times over the same period, so Karakalpakstan is actually lagging behind the rest of the country, likely due to emigration.

Karakalpakstan is a basket case going back to the Soviet years.

(when its corruption was legendary even by Central Asian standards)

Is there some truth in the claim that they Karakalpak people were invented as a separate ethnic group rather than a subsection of the Kazakhi people to justify giving their region to Uzbekistan (so that republic would have its own outlet on the Aral Sea)? Their language is very close to Kazakh, after all.

[GMantis]

The ethnic group called “Kazakh” was made during the Soviet era, before that it was like a designator for everyone with a similar language, like referring to all Germanic speakers as German.

Not quite, since there was actually a Kazakh Khanate. Also, if the criteria for creating the Kazakh nation was language, the Karakalpaks should probably have been included.