Launch app →

East Asia · Sui, Tang and the khaganates

Eastern Göktürk Khaganate

drawn on the map AD 587–632

The Eastern Turkic Khaganate was the eastern successor of the First Turkic Khaganate (founded 552 by Bumin), dominating the Mongolian steppe. Under Illig Qaghan it pressured the early Tang until Emperor Taizong's generals (Li Jing) crushed it in 630, reducing the Turks to Tang vassalage and earning Taizong the title "Heavenly Khaghan."

See it on the map → Wikipedia ↗
Shown on the map
AD 587–632
Peak area
2.8M km²
Region
East Asia

Overview

The Eastern Turkic Khaganate was the eastern successor of the First Turkic Khaganate (founded 552 by Bumin), dominating the Mongolian steppe. Under Illig Qaghan it pressured the early Tang until Emperor Taizong's generals (Li Jing) crushed it in 630, reducing the Turks to Tang vassalage and earning Taizong the title "Heavenly Khaghan." It revived as the Second Turkic Khaganate (682–744) before the Uyghurs replaced it.

Common questions

What was Eastern Göktürk Khaganate?
The Eastern Turkic Khaganate was the eastern successor of the First Turkic Khaganate (founded 552 by Bumin), dominating the Mongolian steppe. Under Illig Qaghan it pressured the early Tang until Emperor Taizong's generals (Li Jing) crushed it in 630, reducing the Turks to Tang vassalage and earning Taizong the title "Heavenly Khaghan."
When is Eastern Göktürk Khaganate shown on the map?
The border data draws Eastern Göktürk Khaganate AD 587–632. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
How large was Eastern Göktürk Khaganate?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Eastern Göktürk Khaganate covered about 2.8 million km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia article for each polity as the basis of these profiles, supplemented by Encyclopaedia Britannica, chinaknowledge.de, the World History Encyclopedia, museum and university sources, and the academic works it lists. The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

Around the same time

See Eastern Göktürk Khaganate in its world

Open the atlas at AD 610 and every neighbour, rival and successor is on screen with it — then drag the slider and watch what happens next.

Open the map at AD 610 →