Olmaliq

Olmaliq, also written Almalyk, is a district-level city in the Tashkent Region of central Uzbekistan, roughly 65 km east of Tashkent. Its 2021 population was given as 133,400. It grew as a company town built by the Soviet Union in the 1930s to exploit local reserves of copper, lead, zinc, gold, silver and barite, and its several large smelting facilities and related industries are today run by JSC Almalyk MMC, one of the largest mining and metallurgical enterprises in Uzbekistan. The smelters have contaminated the area heavily, and the city is considered one of the most polluted places on earth, with sulfuric acid fumes in the air and toxic waste in the ground. The plant employs around 25,000 residents, and in January 2005 the government announced a clean-up plan.