Tajikistan is one of the oldest states in the world. The territory of modern Tajikistan was inhabited even before the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. Sogdians and Bactrians, who created their famous states in antiquity - Sogdiana and Bactria. In the VI century. BC. this territory was captured by the Persian state of the Achaemenids, but already in the IV century. BC e. the Achaemenid empire fell under the blows of the troops of Alexander the Great, who seized (with great difficulty) and Sogdiana and Bactria. In the 1st century. n. e. here a new powerful state was formed - the Kushan Empire, and after its collapse in the III century. AD Sogdiana and Bactria for a short period came under the rule of the Sassanid Empire. After its fall, the territory of the country many times "passed from hand to hand" of many powerful empires - from the Samanid dynasty (875-999) and the Mongol empire of Timur (Tamerlane), to the Bukhara Khan and the Russian Empire.

           The ancient cities of Penjikent (known since the 6th century), Khujand, Ura-Tyube (and still famous for the products of local craftsmen), Isfara, Kanibadam and others are located on the territory of modern Tajikistan. The architectural monuments of the cities of neighboring Uzbekistan ( Samarkand, Bukhara, etc.), with which Tajikistan was a single state for a long time. In Tajikistan itself, it is worth noting such monuments as the Gissar fortress, the mausoleum of Khoja Mashhad, Ajina-Tepe with the remains of Buddhist monasteries of the 7th-8th centuries.