Khujand International Airport — Khujand, Tajikistan

LBD serves Khujand, one of Central Asia's oldest continuously inhabited cities and a key waypoint along the historic Silk Road trade routes that once linked China to the Mediterranean world. Alexander the Great is traditionally credited with founding a fortified settlement, Alexandria Eschate, near the site during his campaigns through Central Asia, and the city carried strategic importance across the many empires that followed, from Persian and Arab rule through the Mongol conquests to the Russian and Soviet periods, when it was known as Leninabad. Sitting along the Syr Darya river at the western edge of the fertile Fergana Valley, Khujand today serves as the administrative center of Tajikistan's Sughd province and stands as the country's second-largest city after the capital, Dushanbe. LBD provides an important air link across Tajikistan's mountainous terrain, connecting a region separated from the capital by imposing mountain ranges.