KHIVA, a town of Asiatic Russia in the Kharezm district of the Uzbek S.S.R. in 41° 3o' N., 6o° 18' E., lying 25 m. west of the Amu Darya, on which it and the oasis around it depend for irrigation. Pop. (1926) 19,866. The town was formerly the centre of a flourishing kingdom of great antiquity, which has declined owing to various physiographical and political causes. In very ancient times the Amu Darya flowed to the Caspian and thus possibly linked the oasis kingdom with the west, by the Sary Kamish depression. Later the river changed its course and now flows into the Sea of Aral. The increasing desiccation of Tur kistan and the constant shift of the river towards the east, with consequent difficulties of irrigation to the oasis are other physio graphical factors in its decline. The final political blow, following', on a long series of troubles, was the heavy war indemnity im posed upon the khanate after the capture of the town in 1873 The whole region was involved in the civil strife following the 1917 revolution and the khanate ceased to exist, becoming ab sorbed in the Uzbek republic, but the effects of civil war on the delicate balance of irrigated regions are disastrous and the oasis is at present much crippled, especially as no railway net yet reaches it, and funds are lacking for energetic measures to cope with the hydrographic problem of the Amu Darya. For its present economic condition see UZBEK or USBEG REPUBLIC. (X.) History.—Khiva was once a great kingdom, under which the names of Chorasmia, Kharezm (Khwarizm) and Urgenj (Jurja niya, Gurganj) held the keys of the mightiest river in Central Asia. The Oxus (Amu Darya) has changed its outlet, and no longer forms a waterway to the Caspian and thence to Europe.
Chorasmia is mentioned by Herodotus, it being then one of the Persian provinces, over which Darius placed satraps, but nothing material of it is known till it was seized by the Arabs in A.D. 680. When the power of the caliphs declined the governor of the prov ince probably became independent; but the first king known to history is Mamun-ibn-Mohammed in 995. Khwarizm fell under the power of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017, and subsequently under that of the Seljuk Turks. In 1o97 the governor Kutb-ud-din as sumed the title of king, and one of his descendants, 'Ala-ud-din Mohammed conquered Persia, and was the greatest prince in Cen tral Asia when Jenghiz Khan appeared in 1219. Khiva was con quered again by Timur in 13 79, and by the Uzbeks in Russia established relations with Khiva in the 17th century. The Cossacks of the Yaik during their raids across the Caspian learnt of the existence of this rich territory and made more than one plundering expedition to the chief town, Urgenj. In 1717
Peter the Great, having heard of the presence of auriferous sand in the bed of the Oxus, desiring also to "open mercantile relations with India through Turan," and to release from slavery some Russian subjects. sent a military force to Khiva. When within loom. of the capital they encountered the troops of the khan. The battle lasted three days, and ended in victory for the Russian arms. The Khivans, however, induced the victors to break up their army into small detachments and treacherously annihilated them in detail. It was not until the third decade of the 19th cen tury that the attention of the Muscovite government was again directed to the khanate. In 1839 a force under Gen. Perovsky moved from Orenburg across the Ust-Urt plateau to the Khivan frontiers, to occupy the khanate, liberate the captives and open the way for trade. This expedition likewise terminated in disaster. In 1847 the Russians founded a fort at the mouth of the Jaxartes or Syr Darya. This advance deprived the Khivans not only of territory, but of a large number of tax-paying Kirghiz, and also gave the Russians a base for further operations. For the next few years, however, the attention of the Russians was taken up with Khokand, their operations on that side culminating in the capture of Tashkent in 1865. Free in this quarter, they directed their thoughts once more to Khiva. In 1869 Krasnovodsk on the east shore of the Caspian was founded, and in 1871-72 the country leading to Khiva from different parts of Russian Turkistan was thoroughly explored and surveyed. In 1873 an expedition to Khiva was carefully organized on a large scale. The army of Io,000 men placed at the disposal of Gen. Kaufmann started from three different bases of operation—Krasnovodsk, Orenburg and Tashkent. Khiva was occupied almost without opposition. All the territory (35,7oosq.m. and no,000 souls) on the right bank of the Oxus was annexed to Russia, while a heavy war in demnity was imposed upon the khanate. In the summer of 1919 the Soviet Government firmly established itself in this area and the native dynasty was expelled. By autumn the Khan of Khiva was deposed and a People's Soviet Republic was substituted for the khanate. The remaining sections of Russian Turkistan with Khiva and Bukhara and the Trans-Caspian province now consti tute the two Socialist Soviet Republics of Uzbekistan and Turk menistan. In Oct. 1924 these two republics were admitted to membership of the U.S.S.R. The part of Khiva situated on the right bank of the Oxus is to-day part of Turkmenistan.