PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
September 2014
827
“T
he modern nation of Kyrgyzstan is based
on a civilization of nomadic tribes who
moved across the eastern and northern
sections of present-day Central Asia. In this process,
theywere dominatedby, and intermixedwith, anum-
ber of other tribes and peoples that have influenced
the ultimate character of the Kyrgyz people. Stone
implements found in the Tian Shan mountains in-
dicate the presence of human society in what is now
Kyrgyzstan as many as 200,000 to 300,000 years
ago. The first written records of a Kyrgyz civilization
appear in Chinese chronicles beginning about 2000
B.C
. The Kyrgyz, a nomadic people, originally inhab-
ited an area of present-day northwestern Mongolia.
In the fourth and third centuries
B.C
., Kyrgyz bands
were among the raiders who persistently invaded
Chinese territory and stimulated the building of the
original GreatWall of China in the third century
B.C
.
The Kyrgyz achieved a reputation as great fighters
and traders. In the centuries that followed, some
Kyrgyz tribes freed themselves from domination by
the Huns by moving northward into the Yenisey and
Baikal regions of present-day south-central Siberia.
The first Kyrgyz state, the Kyrgyz Khanate, existed
from the sixth until the thirteenth century
A.D
., ex-
panding by the tenth century southwestward to the
eastern and northern regions of present-day Kyrgyz-
stan and westward to the headwaters of the Ertis
(Irtysh)
River in present-day eastern Kazakstan. In
this period, the khanate established intensive com-
mercial contacts in China, Tibet, Central Asia, and
Persia. In the meantime, beginning about 1000
B.C
.,
large tribes collectively known as the Scythians also
lived in the area of present-day Kyrgyzstan. Excel-
lent warriors, the Scythian tribes farther west had
resisted an invasion by the troops of Alexander the
Great in 328-27
B.C
. The Kyrgyz tribes who entered
the region around the sixth century played a major
role in the development of feudalism.
“The Kyrgyz reached their greatest expansion by conquering
the Uygur Khanate and forcing it out of Mongolia in
A.D
.
840, then moving as far south as the Tian Shan range – a
position the Kyrgyz maintained for about 200 years. By the
twelfth century, however, Kyrgyz domination had shrunk to
the region of the Sayan Mountains, northwest of present-day
Mongolia, and the Altay Range on the present-day border of
China and Mongolia. In the same period, other Kyrgyz tribes
were moving across a wide area of Central Asia and mingling
with other ethnic groups. The Mongols’ invasion of Central
Asia in the fourteenth century devastated the territory of
Kyrgyzstan, costing its people their independence and their
written language. The son of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan,
Dzhuchi, conquered the Kyrgyz tribes of the Yenisey region,
who by this time had become disunited. For the next 200 years,
the Kyrgyz remained under the Golden Horde and the Oriot
and Jumgar khanates that succeeded that regime. Freedom
was regained in 1510, but Kyrgyz tribes were overrun in the
seventeenth century by the Kalmyks, in the mid-eighteenth
century by the Manchus, and in the early nineteenth century
by the Uzbeks. The Kyrgyz began efforts to gain protection
from more powerful neighboring states in 1758, when some
tribes sent emissaries to China. A similar mission went to the
Russian Empire in 1785. Between 1710 and 1876, the Kyrgyz
were ruled by the Uzbek Quqon
(Kokand)
Khanate, one of the
three major principalities of Central Asia during that period.
Kyrgyz tribes fought and lost four wars against the Uzbeks
of Quqon between 1845 and 1873. The defeats strengthened
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International boundary
Province
(oblasty)
boundary
National capital
Province
(oblasty)
capital
Railroad
Road
ThecityofBishkek (BishkekShaary)
has statusequal to thatof anoblasty.
Kyrgyzstan
LambertConformalConicProjection,SP39˚00'N/43˚30'N
Base 803158AI (G00230) 12-05
0
50
100Miles
0
50
100Kilometers
Boundary representation is
not necessarily authoritative.
