Turkistan, also spelled Turkestan, in Asian history, the regions of Central Asia lying between Siberia on the north; Tibet, India, Afghanistan, and Iran on the south; the Gobi (desert) on the east; and the Caspian Sea on the west.
For a time after the mid-1920s, WesTurkistanan was known as Soviet Central Asia (administratively excluding Kazakhstan).
The whole of Turkistan was under various Turkic rulers until the appearance of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, who occupied Transoxiana in 1220.
Genghis Khan assigned Turkistan to his second son, Chagatai, whose descendants eventually divided into two branches, the khans of Transoxiana and those of East Turkistan.
During the next century, West Turkistan was mainly controlled by the three rival khanates of Bukhara, Khiva (Khorezm), and Kokand.
Between the 1850s and the 1880s economic and strategic considerations impelled the Russian government to bring the whole of West Turkistan under its control, only the khanates of Bukhara and Khiva being left partially independent under their traditional rulers.
The Russian Civil War after the revolution resulted in some genuine nationalist uprisings, but West Turkistan eventually came under Soviet control.
Russian influence increased after the collapse of the Ch'ing dynasty in 1912 and particularly after the consolidation of the Soviet regime in West Turkistan.
Uzbek- and Taranchi-based "New Uighur" took the place of Chagatai in Turkistan.
From the Eurasian steppes, Turkic-speaking groups penetrated other regions: the Uighur migrated toward eastern Turkistan, the Kipchak toward the Pontic steppes, and the Oghuz mainly southeastward, toward Iran, Anatolia, and so on.
Qarakhanid, the first Islamic Turkic literary language, developed in the 11th century in eastern Turkistan under the Qarakhanid dynasty.
