TURKISTAN, a name conventionally employed to designate the regions of Central Asia which lie between Siberia on the N. and Tibet, India and Afghanistan on the S., the western limit being the Caspian Sea and the eastern Mongolia and the Desert of Gobi. Etymologically the term is intended to indicate the regions inhabited by Turkish races. The regions called Turkistan not only contain races which do not belong to the Turk family, but exclude races which do, e.g., the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. What was formerly called Eastern Turkistan is now mainly the southern portion of the Chinese dominion of Sinkiang (q.v., see also Tarim, etc.), while the former West Turkistan is included in the Uzbek, Turkmen, Kazak, Kirghiz and Tadzhik Socialist Soviet Republics (qq.v.).
Our knowledge of the history of Turkistan is very fragmentary until about the beginning of the Christian era. It may be that at a very early period East Turkistan was inhabited by an Aryan population. When the Huns (Hiung-nu) occupied west and east Mongolia in 177-165 B.C. they drove before them the Yue-chi (q.v.), who divided into two hordes, one of which invaded the valley of the Indus, while the other met the Sacae in East Tur kistan and drove them over the Tian-shan into the valley of the Ili. Thus, by the beginning of our era, the Tarim region had a mixed population of Aryans and Ural-Altaians, some being settled agriculturists and others nomads. There were also several inde pendent cities, of which Khotan was the most important. One portion of the Aryans emigrated and settled in what is now Wakhhan (on the Pamir plateau), the present language of which seems very old. Between 120 and IoI B.C. the Chinese extended their rule westwards over East Turkistan as far as Kashgar. By the end of the 5th century the western parts fell under the sway of the "White Huns" (Ephtha lites, or Tochari), while the eastern parts were under Tangut (Thygun) dominion. An active trade was carried on by means of caravans, corn and silk especially being mentioned at a very early date.
The civilization and political organization of the country were dominated by the Chinese, but were also influenced to some extent by Graeco-Bactrian civilization, which had probably secured a footing in the country as early as the 3rd century B.C. From the 2nd century to the first half of the 7th our knowledge is slight, and is derived chiefly from the Journeys of the Chinese pilgrims, Fa-hien in Song-yun and Hwei-seng in 518-521, and Hsiian-Tsang in 629-645. By this time Buddhism had reached its culminating point : in Khotan there were ioo monasteries and 5,00o monks, and the Indian sacred literature was widely dif fused. In the 7th century the
Tibetan king, Srong-btsan, with the help of the western Turks, subjugated the western part of the Tarim basin. In 712-713 the Mohammedans, after excur sions into West Turkistan, in vaded East Turkistan. In 790 the Tibetans were masters of East Turkistan, but later (9th century) the territory fell under the rule of an Uighur people. In the 11th century Mongol hordes overran East and West Turki stan and in the 14th, Tughlak Timur accepted Islam and shif t ed his capital from Aksu to Kashgar. His son reigned at Samarkand, but in 1389 Timur devastated Dzungaria (q.v.) and East Turkistan.
Chinese Turkistan.—In the 14th and 15th centuries Bukhara and Samarkand became cen tres of Muslim scholarship and sent great numbers of their learned doctors to Kashgaria. Rubruquis, who visited East Turkistan in 1254, Marco Polo between 1271 and 1275; and HoIs in 168o all bore witness to great religious tolerance; but this entirely disappeared with the invasion of the Bukha rian mullahs or Mohammedan priests. In the 17th century a powerful Kalmuck confederation arose in Dzungaria, and ex tended its sway over the Ili and Issyk-kul basins, having its capital on the Ili. To this power or to the Kirghiz the "Whites" and "Blacks" alternately appealed in their struggles, in which Yarkand supported the latter and Kashgar the former. The Chinese entered Dzungaria in 1758, the Kalmucks fled, and Dzungaria became a Chinese province, with a military coloniza tion of Sibos, Solons, Dahurs, Chinese criminals and Muslim Dzungars. The Chinese next re-conquered East Turkistan, mark ing their progress by massacres and transporting 12,500 partisans of independence to the Ili (Kulja) valley. Hereupon the dis sentient khojas fled to Khokand in West Turkistan and there gathered armies of malcontents and fanatic followers of Islam. Several times they succeeded in overthrowing the Chinese rule —in 1825, in 183o and in 1847—but their successes were never permanent. In 1857 another insurrection broke out; but a few months later the Chinese again took Kashgar. In the course of the Dzungarian outbreak of 1864 the Chinese were again expelled, and Yakub Beg became master of Kashgar in 1872. But five years later he had again to engage in war with China, in which he was defeated, and East Turkistan once more became a Chinese province ; it is now known under the general name Sinkiang, to gether with Kulja and Kashgaria.