Khiva

American  

[kee-vuh, khyi-vah] / ˈki və, xyɪˈvɑ /

noun

1. a former Asian khanate along the Amu Darya River, S of the Aral Sea: now divided between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

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Khiva British  

/ xiˈva /

noun

1. a former khanate of W Asia, on the Amu Darya River: divided between the former Uzbek and Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics in 1924

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Example Sentences

And though all three cities have centuries-old caravansaries — the famed inns where Silk Road merchants stayed — Ichan-Kala, a remnant of the ancient Khiva oasis, checkered with medieval Islamic buildings, appears completely untouched by time.

From New York Times

Mirziyoyev has expressed hope of bringing prosperity by opening it up after decades of isolation under Karimov, including by attracting tourists to the blue-domed medieval Silk Road cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva.

From Reuters

They were dwarfed by the giant buildings that lined the roads — banks, museums and ministries — “Babylonian blocks,” as the English writer Philip Glazebrook, who had been in Tashkent at the end of Soviet rule, described them in “Journey to Khiva” in the early ’90s: “Since the days of Nineveh this has been the architecture of dictatorship and persecution.”

From New York Times

My spirits rose at the sight of this desolation, for it was only with this nullity in mind that one could imagine what it was to see the minarets of Khiva, their blue tiles canceling out the despair of the desert, as light from a lighthouse cancels out the darkness of the sea.

From New York Times

In my last hours in Uzbekistan, before catching a flight back to New York, I walked along the ramparts of Khiva’s Ichan-Kala, or walled inner town, with Madina.

From New York Times