The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Osh
(ôsh) (KEY) , city (1993 pop. 233,300), capital of Osh region, S Kyrgyzstan, in the Fergana Valley. Terminus of the Osh-Khorugh highway, Osh has silk, textile, and food-processing industries. One of the oldest settlements of Central Asia, Osh was for centuries a major silk-production center, strategically situated on a trade route to India. The old city adjoins the larger modern section. The Tash-Sulayman [Solomon’s throne], an odd-shaped rock, was once a place of Muslim pilgrimage. Osh was the scene of several violent Uzbek-Kyrgyz ethnic clashes in 1990.
