Khiva is a walled city you visit as one object. Buy the combined Itchan Kala ticket at a gate, then work west to east: Kalta Minor and the Muhammad Amin Khan madrasa, the Juma Mosque's forest of columns, the tiled harem at Tosh-Hovli, and the Islam Khoja minaret for the climb. Two days is right. One is enough if you skip the desert fortresses.
Samarkand and Bukhara are cities with monuments in them. Khiva is the monument. Itchan Kala, the walled inner town, packs more than fifty listed buildings and 250 old houses into a rectangle you can cross in ten minutes, and UNESCO made it Uzbekistan's first World Heritage site in 1990.
The walled inner town, and the reason to come. More than fifty listed monuments and 250 old houses sit inside a rectangle of mud brick, listed by UNESCO in 1990 as Uzbekistan's first World Heritage site. One combined ticket, sold at the gates, opens most of what is ticketed inside.
The stump that became the emblem. Muhammad Amin Khan began it in 1852 and meant it to tower over Central Asia; he was killed in battle in 1855 and it stopped at 29 metres, on a base about 14.5 metres across. Nothing else in the country is glazed turquoise from the ground up.
A flat-roofed hall with no dome, no portal and no courtyard, held up by 213 wooden columns in seventeen rows. A few were carved in the tenth and eleventh centuries and carried in from older buildings; the mosque around them was rebuilt in 1788. Two roof openings are the only light, so it stays dark and cool.
Khiva's tallest structure and its last great commission, begun in 1908 for the khan's vizier and completed with its madrasa in 1910. The minaret runs 57 metres in bands of blue, white and green glaze, and 118 steps in the dark reach a platform at 45 metres. The madrasa below holds the applied arts museum.
Allakuli Khan's stone house, built between 1830 and 1841 with more than 260 rooms around three courtyards: the harem, the audience court and the court of justice. The tilework here is the finest in the city, and it is the harem's carved columns and painted ceilings that people remember.
The khans' own fortress, walled off inside the walled city and completed in 1688. What survives is mostly nineteenth century: the summer mosque under its blue tiles, the mint, the throne court, and the Akshi-Bobo watchtower that gives the classic view across the rooftops.
The city's shrine, and the one building where Khiva feels lived in rather than curated. Pahlavon Mahmud was a fourteenth-century wrestler, poet and furrier, and is the patron saint of the city. Under the turquoise dome the walls are lined floor to ceiling in white and blue majolica.
The largest madrasa in Khiva, finished in 1855 with 125 cells for as many as 260 students, and the building Kalta Minor was raised to stand beside. It works as a hotel now, which means the courtyard is open to anyone who walks in for tea.
Khiva's commercial quarter, built as one project in the 1830s at the east gate: a madrasa, a covered bazaar and a caravanserai that traded north into Russia. The vaulted Tim still runs as a market, so the space works as it was designed to rather than as an exhibit.
The last khans' palace, and the only major monument outside the walls. Built in Dishan Kala in the early 1900s, its reception hall was fitted out in Russian style: parquet, tiled stoves, chandeliers and printed wallpaper, behind a courtyard of Khorezm tilework. This is where Khiva stopped being medieval.
Unfinished at 29 metres in 1855, and glazed turquoise the whole way up. Khiva's emblem.
Fifty-seven metres, 118 steps, and the highest view in the city from the platform at 45.
Khiva's largest, 125 cells, finished in 1855. A hotel now, with the courtyard left open.
The smallest in the walled city and the last built here. It holds the applied arts museum.
Set into the east wall in the 1830s, facing the covered bazaar and caravanserai it was planned with.
Opposite Kunya Ark, and the one with room to breathe: a wide courtyard now used for exhibitions.
Two hundred and thirteen wooden columns in seventeen rows under a flat roof, a few of them a thousand years old.
The city's patron saint under a turquoise dome, and its one working shrine. Tiled to the ceiling.
A small fourteenth-century tomb whose majolica cenotaph predates almost everything standing around it.
The white neighbourhood mosque by the east gate, small and low, with carved doors worth the detour.
A fortress within the fortress: mint, throne court, summer mosque and the watchtower everyone climbs at dusk.
The Russian-furnished reception hall of the last khans, and the one palace outside the walls.
Khorezm carpets, wood carving and metalwork, shown in the cells of the Islam Khoja madrasa.
The rooftop everyone books, aimed straight at the Islam Khoja minaret. Reserve for sunset.
Run by a French-Uzbek couple, so there are real vegetarian plates and French desserts beside the plov.
One domed room in the middle of the walled city, doing tea, homemade sweets and a short Uzbek menu.
A courtyard dinner away from the rooftop queues, with the Khorezm dishes done carefully.
A plain teahouse for soups, laghman and shurpa at local prices. A lunch place, not a dinner one.
Started in 2001 by UNESCO and Operation Mercy to bring back Khorezm weaving. More than forty women work the looms.
The embroidery half of the same project, opened in 2004 with the British Council. Silk is dyed on site.
The carved columns and doors around you are still cut by hand, in workshops set into the madrasa cells.
One hundred and eighteen steps to 45 metres, and the only view that puts the whole walled city below you.
The khans' lookout at the top of Kunya Ark, and the sunset spot. It fills, so climb early.
Dinner height rather than tower height, pointed at the minaret. Free with a table, and the table needs booking.
The west gate is where the wall stands highest and the evening light lands, with open desert behind it.
Three ruined Khorezmian fortresses on a desert ridge, the oldest of them from the fourth century BC.
A palace-city of the second and third centuries AD, raised on a nine-metre platform above the sand.
The second largest collection of Russian avant-garde anywhere, assembled in the desert. Long drive, worth it.
The regional capital 35 km away: the airport, the long-distance trains, and a Soviet grid to walk off an hour in.
A public holiday, and one of the few winter dates with any crowd inside the walls. Museums keep short hours.
A public holiday taken seriously across Uzbekistan. Offices and many shops close; the monuments stay open.
The Persian new year, and the biggest date in the Uzbek calendar. Music and dancing inside Itchan Kala, and sumalak.
Khorezm's own dance, on the UNESCO intangible heritage list since 2019, performed in the squares of the walled city.
The public holiday closing the fasting month. Restaurants keep normal hours through Ramadan; the shrine is at its busiest.
The feast of sacrifice, and the second of the two big religious dates. Expect full trains and full guesthouses.
Khorezm's melon harvest marked at Itchan Kala with folk music, costume displays and regional cooking.
Uzbekistan marks 1991 with concerts and fireworks. Khiva stages its own in front of the walls.
The way in by air, 35 km northeast. Uzbekistan Airways runs the Tashkent shuttle plus routes to Istanbul, Moscow and a few European cities. Forty minutes by taxi.
Khiva has its own station just outside the walls. Overnight sleepers run from Tashkent, and a faster daytime train via Samarkand and Bukhara does it in about seven hours on the days it runs.
Urgench is the road hub. Shared cars and marshrutkas cover the 35 km to Khiva all day, and the same cars run on to Nukus and Bukhara.
Itchan Kala is closed to cars and crosses in ten minutes, so walking is the transport. For Nurullaboy, the station and the airport, Yandex Go works and prices in advance.
Khiva's own: dill-green noodles under a beef, potato and carrot stew, with yoghurt on the side.
Khorezm ravioli filled with beaten egg and butter, boiled and eaten with sour cream.
Darker and drier than the Tashkent version, and cooked with the region's own spice mix.
Fried half-moon pastries, filled with potato, spinach, pumpkin or minced beef.
Slapped onto the tandoor wall and pulled off blistered, with lamb and onion inside.
Charcoal skewers ordered by the stick, and the default dinner in every Itchan Kala courtyard.
A clear mutton broth with whole potato and carrot, ordered when the desert turns cold.
The region's export since the Silk Road, sold by the cartload in August and September.
Get our one-page Khiva cheat sheet plus a fresh destination every Thursday.
Uzbekistan