The Islamkhodzha Minaret is the tallest structure in the old city of Khiva and one of the more ornate minarets in Uzbekistan. The photo is rotated to show the minaret in close to its actual position, i.e. vertical.

Although there has been a city on this site for thousands of years, the structures in the present "old city" of Khiva mostly date from the 17th to 19th Century. Primarily that is because over the centuries the city has been the scene of many wars, some of which the city lost - more than once being totally destroyed in the process Among the conquering leaders were Gengis Khan, Tamerlane ("Timur the Lame"), and the Arab-lead armies spreading Islam into Central Asia.