Europe · The successor kingdoms
Avar Khaganate
567–822
The Avar Khaganate was a nomadic steppe empire established in the Carpathian Basin (Pannonia) by the Pannonian Avars, a confederation of largely Turkic and other steppe peoples who arrived from the Eurasian steppe. It was founded around 567 under Bayan I (r. c. 562/565–602), who allied with the Lombards to destroy the Gepids and then, after the Lombards departed for Italy in 568, dominated the Carpathian Basin.
- Existed
- 567–822
- Shown on the map
- AD 561–805
- Peak area
- 1.0M km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
The Avar Khaganate was a nomadic steppe empire established in the Carpathian Basin (Pannonia) by the Pannonian Avars, a confederation of largely Turkic and other steppe peoples who arrived from the Eurasian steppe. It was founded around 567 under Bayan I (r. c. 562/565–602), who allied with the Lombards to destroy the Gepids and then, after the Lombards departed for Italy in 568, dominated the Carpathian Basin. At its height the khaganate controlled territory corresponding to modern Hungary, Austria, and parts of the surrounding Balkans and Central Europe.
The Avars extracted enormous tribute from Byzantium — reaching 200,000 gold solidi a year at the peak (following the treaty of 623), a figure given in Walter Pohl's Die Awaren (1988, p. 501) and echoed by the University of Warsaw's migration-period thesaurus, which notes that "the apogee of the Avar Khaganate was in the first quarter of the 7th c., when the Avars…were paid tribute of 200,000 solidi…a year." They raided deep into the Balkans, contributing to the Slavic settlement of the region. Their high-water mark and turning point was the Siege of Constantinople (626), in which the Avars, their Slavic subjects, and the Sasanian Persians jointly besieged the Byzantine capital while Emperor Heraclius was campaigning in the east; the siege failed disastrously, shattering Avar prestige. Thereafter subject peoples revolted — the Bulgars under Kubrat around 631–632, and earlier the Slavs under Samo.
The khaganate's destruction came at the hands of the Franks. After Charlemagne's conquest of the Lombards (774) and Bavaria (788), war broke out; Charlemagne invaded along the Danube in the summer of 791 (his son Pippin of Italy attacking from the southeast), and in 795–796 Frankish forces (under Duke Eric of Friuli and the Slav Woynimir, and Pippin) captured and looted the Avar "Ring" (the central fortified residence and treasury). The vast Avar treasure entered Frankish coffers. The khaganate collapsed as an independent power by around 803–822, with the last remnants absorbed by Franks and Bulgars.
Historiographical note
Avar history is known almost entirely from hostile outside sources (Byzantine, Frankish) and archaeology; the internal structure and even the name of Bayan's successor are uncertain.
Common questions
- What was Avar Khaganate?
- The Avar Khaganate was a nomadic steppe empire established in the Carpathian Basin (Pannonia) by the Pannonian Avars, a confederation of largely Turkic and other steppe peoples who arrived from the Eurasian steppe. It was founded around 567 under Bayan I (r. c. 562/565–602), who allied with the Lombards to destroy the Gepids and then, after the Lombards departed for Italy in 568, dominated the Carpathian Basin.
- When did Avar Khaganate exist?
- Avar Khaganate existed 567–822. On this map it is drawn AD 561–805.
- How large was Avar Khaganate?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Avar Khaganate covered about 1 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 articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica and the World History Encyclopedia, while flagging entries built on thin or contested evidence — Samo's Empire on a single Fredegar passage, Venice's 697 founding date as legendary, the Pacta conventa as a probable forgery. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Pannonian Avars en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannonian_Avars
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).
See Avar Khaganate in its world
Open the atlas at AD 683 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 683 →