Sogdiana

Sogdiana or Sogdia ( - Old Persian: Sughuda; ; - Sùtè) was the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the eighteenth in the list in the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great (i. 16). Sogdiana is "listed" as the second 'good lands and countries' that Ahura Mazda created. This region is listed after the first, Airyana Vaeja, Land of the Aryans, in the Zoroastrian book of Vendidad, hence one can see how ancient this region is considered.[1]  Sogdiana, at different periods of time, included territories around Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand and Kesh in modern Uzbekistan.
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