East Asia · The Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern dynasties
Yenisei Kyrgyz
drawn on the map AD 555–762, 793–1219
The Yenisei Kyrgyz were a Turkic people of southern Siberia (Minusinsk Basin, upper Yenisei). Bars Beg founded a khanate c. 693; defeated by the Second Turkic Khaganate at the Battle of Sayan Mountains (711) and later subject to the Uyghurs (from 758), they repeatedly rebelled.
- Shown on the map
- AD 555–762, 793–1219 (2 periods)
- Peak area
- 427k km²
- Region
- East Asia
Overview
The Yenisei Kyrgyz were a Turkic people of southern Siberia (Minusinsk Basin, upper Yenisei). Bars Beg founded a khanate c. 693; defeated by the Second Turkic Khaganate at the Battle of Sayan Mountains (711) and later subject to the Uyghurs (from 758), they repeatedly rebelled. In 840, under the khan Are (Kulug Bagha), allied with the Karluks, they sacked the Uyghur capital Ordu-Baliq, killed Qasar Qaghan, and destroyed the Uyghur Khaganate—scattering the Uyghurs southward. Historians caution against overstating their power: Michael Drompp observes "the Kyrgyz remained in their Yenisei homelands and there is no evidence of a permanent migration," and Peter Golden stresses that "their power was real enough to defeat the Uighurs, but they did not create a lasting empire." As the Kyrgyz Khaganate literature summarizes, "scholars who write of a Kyrgyz 'empire' from about 840 to about 924 are describing a fantasy." They were noted for iron metallurgy.
Common questions
- What was Yenisei Kyrgyz?
- The Yenisei Kyrgyz were a Turkic people of southern Siberia (Minusinsk Basin, upper Yenisei). Bars Beg founded a khanate c. 693; defeated by the Second Turkic Khaganate at the Battle of Sayan Mountains (711) and later subject to the Uyghurs (from 758), they repeatedly rebelled.
- When is Yenisei Kyrgyz shown on the map?
- The border data draws Yenisei Kyrgyz AD 555–762, 793–1219, in 2 separate periods. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
- How large was Yenisei Kyrgyz?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Yenisei Kyrgyz covered about 427,000 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:
- Wikipedia — Yenisei Kyrgyz en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yenisei_Kyrgyz
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).
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