Turkestan (Persian: ترکستان ) (also spelled Turkistan or Türkistan, literally means "Land of the Turks") is a region in Central Asia, which today is largely inhabited by Turkic people. It also contains some of the great cities of Persian culture, notably Samarkand and Bukhara, and still has a substantial Iranian population, known today as Tajiks.

It is subdivided into West (Russian) and East Turkestan (called Xinjiang Turkestan by the PRC, administered as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, titled Uyghuristan by Uyghur separatists), with the Tian Shan and Pamir ranges forming a rough division between the two.

Overview

Known as Turan to Iranians, western Turkestan has also been known historically as Sogdiana, Ma wara'u'n-nahr (by its Arab conquerors), and Transoxiana by Western travellers. The latter two names refer to its position beyond the River Oxus when approached from the south, emphasizing Turkestan's long-standing relationship with Iran, the Persian Empires and the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. The region became part of the Russian Empire in the 1860s, and is thus sometimes called Russian Turkestan or the Туркестанский Край (Turkestanskii Krai). After the Russian Revolution, a Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union was created, which was eventually split into the Kazakh SSR (Kazakhstan), Kirghiz SSR (Kyrgyzstan), Tajik SSR (Tajikistan), Turkmen SSR (Turkmenistan) and Uzbek SSR (Uzbekistan). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, these republics gained their independence.

Eastern Turkestan, often called Chinese Turkestan, is home to the oldest settled Turkic people in the region, the Uyghurs. It was conquered by the Qing Dynasty in the mid-18th century and was named Ice Jecen or Xinjiang (otherwise spelt Sinkiang), meaning new frontier. It was taken over by the Republic of China and then the People's Republic of China by which it is now administered as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Further reading

• V.V. Barthold "Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion" (London) 1968 (3rd Edition)
• René Grousset "L'empire des steppes" (Paris) 1965
• David Christian "A History Of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia" (Oxford) 1998 Vol.I
• Svat Soucek "A History of Inner Asia" (Cambridge) 2000
• Vasily Bartold "Работы по Исторической Географии" (Moscow) 2002
  • English translation: V.V. Barthold "Work on Historical Geography" (Moscow) 2002
• Rall, Ted. "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?" New York: NBM Publishing, 2006.

See also

• Zeki Velidi Togan
• Hasan Paksoy
• Basmachi

External links

• Welcome to Turkistan
• Turkic Languages: Practice Kazakh

Subdivisions of the Russian Empire | Xinjiang | Central Asia | Divided regions

Türküstan | Turquestan | Turkestan | Turquestán | Turkestan | טורקסטן | Turkestan | トルキスタン | Turquistão | Turkistan | Turkestan | Turkestan | Turkestan | Türkistan | 突厥斯坦