From Moghulistan to the Successor Khanates
The fragmentation of the Chagatai world did not mark its disappearance. Instead, it gave rise to a series of successor states that reshaped the political landscape of Central Asia.
The Kazakh Khanate emerged in the mid-fifteenth century when Kerei Khan and Janibek Khan led groups of nomads from the Uzbek Khanate into eastern Moghulistan, where they received the support of Esen Buqa II. From this new base, they established a polity that gradually evolved into the Kazakh Khanate.
At the same time, other successor states—including the Yarkent Khanate, the Uzbek Khanate, the Khanate of Bukhara, the Khanate of Khiva, and later the Khanate of Kokand—developed within the broader political and cultural environment shaped by the Chagataid world.
Although these states followed different historical paths, they inherited many institutions, traditions of Chinggisid legitimacy, and political cultures that had evolved during the centuries of Chagatai rule.
The Chagatai state disappeared, but the Chagatai world continued to shape Central Asia for centuries.
Historical Timeline
- 1348 – Moghulistan established.
- 1465–1466 – Kerei and Janibek founded the Kazakh Khanate in eastern Moghulistan.
- 1514 – Yarkent Khanate established by Sultan Said Khan.
- 1500 – Uzbek rule consolidated under Muhammad Shaybani Khan.
- 1599 – Khanate of Bukhara under the Janid (Astrakhanid) dynasty.
- 1511 – Khiva emerged as an independent khanate under the Arabshahids.
- 1709 – Khanate of Kokand founded in the Fergana Valley.
tHE cHAGADAI WORLD (1400-2000
A Legacy Across Six Centuries
The fifteenth century marked the political fragmentation of the Chagatai Khanate, but not the end of the Chagataid world. Instead, its political traditions, Chinggisid legitimacy, and cultural heritage continued through a succession of Central Asian states.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Moghulistan, the Yarkent Khanate, the Kazakh Khanate, the Uzbek Khanate, the Khanate of Khiva, and the Khanate of Bukhara emerged from the political landscape shaped by the Chagataids. Although these states developed independently, they inherited many institutions, traditions, and identities rooted in the Chagatai world.
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these successor states remained the dominant powers of Central Asia, preserving the region’s Turkic-Islamic civilization, Silk Road cities, and Chinggisid political traditions while adapting to new regional challenges.
The nineteenth century brought increasing pressure from expanding empires. The Russian Empire advanced across the Kazakh Steppe and Transoxiana, while the Qing Empire consolidated control over Xinjiang. By the late nineteenth century, most of the successor khanates had lost their political independence.
The twentieth century witnessed revolutions, Soviet rule, and profound political transformation. Yet despite changing borders and governments, the historical and cultural legacy of the Chagatai world endured. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the newly independent republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan emerged largely within territories that had once formed the core of the Chagatai world. In China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, many cities that flourished under the Chagataids—such as Kashgar, Yarkand, and Turpan—remain important cultural centers today.
The Chagatai Khanate disappeared as a state, but the Chagatai world survived for centuries through its peoples, languages, political traditions, and civilizations. Its legacy continues to shape the heart of modern Central Asia, making the Chagatai world one of the longest-enduring historical inheritances of Eurasia.