Mud walls and a turquoise tower
Khiva
A walled desert town where a short, fat minaret wrapped in blue-green tile stands over clay-coloured lanes.
Why Khiva is khiva turquoise
Khiva lies in the far west of Uzbekistan, near the Amu Darya river. Its inner town, Itchan Kala, is ringed by high mud-brick walls that bulge like a row of barrels. Inside, almost everything is the colour of dried clay. The exception is tile. The Kalta Minor, begun in the 1850s as what was meant to be a very tall minaret, was left unfinished at under thirty metres. It is covered from top to bottom in bands of turquoise, green, blue and white glazed brick. Khiva's tile makers favoured a cool palette of blue, white and turquoise, with fine plant patterns, seen in the palaces of the khans. Itchan Kala became a World Heritage Site in 1990.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Khiva
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Khiva" on Wikipedia. If you know Khiva and we have it wrong, tell us.
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The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Madurai In: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Samarkand Uz: Adam Harangozó, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Bukhara Uz: Euyasik, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Isfahan Ir: Pedram forouzanfar, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Harar Et: Unknown author, CC BY 2.0, source
- Portmeirion Gb: Llywelyn2000, CC BY-SA 4.0, source