Tugay forests of the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve

Between the Vakhsh and Panj rivers in south-western Tajikistan, dense riverside thickets known as tugay spread across floodplain terraces — the largest and best-preserved forest of its kind in Central Asia, and the only place where the Asiatic poplar tugay ecosystem survives intact at such scale. The reserve's name recalls the Caspian tigers that hunted here into the mid-20th century. UNESCO granted Tigrovaya Balka World Heritage status in 2023.