Kuva (formerly Kuba) is a city in the northeast of the Fergana region of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Since 1929, the administrative center of the Kuva region. One of the most ancient cities of the Ferghana Valley on the Great Silk Road. In Soviet times, it increased significantly after the opening of a furniture factory and a cannery in it.

History
Due to the antiquity of the city, the exact date of its foundation has not yet been established; the age of the settlement dates back to the 3rd century BC. Among the cities of the eastern part of Central Asia, in antiquity, Kuva occupies a firm position after Chust, Istaravshan, Khujand, Penjikent (from the turn of the II-I millennium to the VI-V centuries BC), at the same time it tops the list of such ancient cities as Kasansay, Osh, Uzgen, Akhsikent, Rishtan (III – II centuries BC), etc.
The city lay on the ancient caravan route that connected the Ferghana Valley with Kashgar. During the early Middle Ages, it was one of the major cities in the valley; during excavations in 1956-58, a Buddhist temple of the 7th-8th centuries was discovered. with clay statues of Buddha and various Buddhist deities; numerous household items, etc. In the 9th century, Cuba was the second largest city in the region after the ancient capital of the Fergana Valley – the city of Akhsiket. In the 10th century, Kuva is described in Arabic sources and consists of three parts: the citadel and the shakhristan, protected by walls with towers and gates, as well as the rabad, the ruins of which have been preserved to this day. It was destroyed during the Mongol invasion at the beginning of the 13th century.
There are disagreements among scientists about the origin of the name Kuva. According to Chinese sources, it is believed that before the beginning of the era and the first centuries of the new era, the city was called Kweisan, Yuan Cheng, and before the Arab invasion, possibly Hongmen. Around the end of the 10th century, the city was called Kubo, which in Persian-Tajik means “strong”, “supporting”, and also “strong fortress”, which corresponds to fortifications – a powerful defensive wall of the city.
The population of the city of Kuva at that time, like the majority of the Ferghans, were carriers of one of the branches of the Eastern Iranian language. The Arab conquests marked the beginning of Islamization. In particular, during the period of the conquest of Central Asia by the Arabs in 739, the governor of Khorasan and Maveranahr, Nasr ibn Seiyar, laid siege to the city of Kuva in Ferghana and subsequently concluded an agreement with the son of the ruler of the city. Due to the fact that the ruler of Kuva was a young prince, negotiations with the Arabs on his behalf through an interpreter were conducted by his mother, the “Queen of Kuva”.

According to the stories, she read to the Arabs a brief instruction about kingship – the mentality of the Eastern Iranian rulers:
A king is not a true king, she began, unless he has six things: a vizier to whom he can entrust his secret plans and who will give him thoughtful advice; a cook who, if the king has no taste for food, will find something to arouse his appetite; a wife whose face makes all his anxieties disappear; fortresses where he can hide; a sword that will not let him down in battle with the enemy, and a treasure on which he can live in any part of the world
With the establishment of the rule of the Turkic dynasty – the Karakhanids, from the 11th century, new waves of Turkic and Turkic-Mongolian steppe tribes penetrate into the Ferghana Valley, which intensify their transition to settled life and enter into communication with the local population – the Parkans. This process develops in the era of the Chagataids, Timurids and Shaibanids, especially from the 16th century with the advent of the latter, it intensified the process of Turkization of the settled Iranian-speaking population of Fergana that had begun since ancient times.

Before the Mongol invasion, the city of Kuva was considered one of the major centers of education in Fergana. Science, poetry and literature flourished in the city, experts do not exclude that it may be the birthplace of one of the largest medieval scientist of the 9th century, Central Asian astronomer, mathematician and geographer Abu ‘l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ferghani, who served the caliphs of Merv, Cairo and Baghdad, gained fame in Europe under the name Alfraganus.