Civil war quickly followed Tajik independence in the early 1990s. Tension between rival clans erupted when Soviet power dissolved, and more than 20,000 people died in the fighting that followed.
Capital: Dushanbe
Population: 6 million
Leader: President Imomali Rakhmonov
About half a million people were displaced as groups from several regions clashed over who should lead the country.
Tajikistan's western plains rise to meet the vertiginous Pamir mountains, the highest in the former Soviet Union, which stretch away to China.
Thousands of Russian troops guard Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan, a major crossing point for opium and heroin heading for Europe.
