Central and North Asia: every state, empire and people from 3200 BCE to today
The Central and North Asia section of the timeline follows 133 states, empires, colonies and peoples from 3200 BCE to today, in 6 areas: Western Siberia and the Altai, Kazakh steppe and Semirechye, Transoxiana and Khwarazm, Tarim basin and Dzungaria, Mongolian plateau and Eastern Siberia and the Far East. Among the most significant are Xiongnu Empire, Mongol Empire, Timurid Empire, Soviet Union and First Turkic Khaganate.
Open Central and North Asia on the interactive timeline
Western Siberia and the Altai
- Uralic hunter-fishers of western Siberia
- Afanasievo culture
- Okunev culture
- Karasuk culture
- Tagar culture
- Pazyryk culture
- Tashtyk culture
- Yenisei Kyrgyz
- Khanty, Mansi and Samoyedic peoples
- Khanate of Sibir
- Russian Siberia
- Russian State (Kolchak)
- Soviet Union
- Russian Federation
Kazakh steppe and Semirechye
- Botai culture
- Yamnaya culture (Ural steppe)
- Poltavka culture
- Sintashta culture
- Andronovo culture
- Saka
- Massagetae
- Kangju
- Wusun
- Oghur and Hunnic tribes
- Western Turkic Khaganate
- Turgesh Khaganate
- Kimek Khaganate
- Oghuz Yabgu State
- Karluk Yabghu
- Cuman-Kipchak confederation
- Kara-Khitai
- Golden Horde
- Khanate of Abu'l-Khayr
- Kazakh Khanate
- Russian Kazakh Steppe
- Alash Autonomy
- Kazakh SSR
- Kirghiz SSR
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
Transoxiana and Khwarazm
- Namazga culture
- Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex
- Yaz culture
- Ancient Chorasmia
- Bactria (Achaemenid satrapy)
- Sogdiana
- Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
- Kushan Empire
- Afrighid dynasty
- Hephthalite Empire
- Umayyad and Abbasid Transoxiana
- Samanid Empire
- Kara-Khanid Khanate
- Seljuk Empire (Khorasan)
- Khwarazmian Empire
- Turkmen tribes
- Chagatai Khanate
- Timurid Empire
- Khanate of Bukhara
- Khanate of Khiva
- Khanate of Kokand
- Emirate of Bukhara
- Russian Turkestan
- Turkestan ASSR
- Bukharan People's Soviet Republic
- Khorezm People's Soviet Republic
- Uzbek SSR
- Turkmen SSR
- Tajik SSR
- Uzbekistan
- Turkmenistan
- Tajikistan
Tarim basin and Dzungaria
- Foragers of Xinjiang
- Chemurchek culture
- Xiaohe culture
- Andronovo herders of Dzungaria
- Subeixi culture
- Yuezhi
- Kingdom of Khotan
- Jushi kingdom
- Loulan (Shanshan)
- Kingdom of Kucha
- Han Protectorate of the Western Regions
- Gaochang kingdom
- Tang Protectorate General to Pacify the West
- Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho
- Moghulistan
- Yarkent Khanate
- Dzungar Khanate
- Qing Xinjiang
- Yettishar
- Xinjiang under the Republic of China
- First East Turkestan Republic
- Second East Turkestan Republic
- Xinjiang under the People's Republic
Mongolian plateau
- Early foragers and herders of Mongolia
- Deer stone and khirigsuur culture
- Slab grave culture
- Donghu
- Xiongnu Empire
- Xianbei state
- Rouran Khaganate
- First Turkic Khaganate
- Eastern Turkic Khaganate
- Xueyantuo
- Second Turkic Khaganate
- Uyghur Khaganate
- Kyrgyz Khaganate
- Liao dynasty
- Kereit, Naiman, Tatar and Merkit tribes
- Khamag Mongol
- Mongol Empire
- Northern Yuan
- Four Oirat
- Qing rule in Mongolia
- Bogd Khanate of Mongolia
- Mongolian People's Republic
- Mongolia
Eastern Siberia and the Far East
- Baikal hunter-fishers
- Belkachi culture
- Ymyyakhtakh culture
- Yukaghir peoples
- Chukchi, Koryak and Itelmen peoples
- Old Bering Sea culture
- Evenki and Even reindeer herders
- Okhotsk culture
- Kurykans
- Punuk culture
- Buryats
- Sakha (Yakuts)
- Russian Far East and Yakutia
- Far Eastern Republic
- Yakut ASSR and Sakha Republic
Key events
- Horses tamed at Botai. People of the Kazakh steppe build their lives around horses, leaving bits of wear on teeth and traces of mare's milk in pots, some of the earliest evidence of horse herding.
- First spoke-wheeled chariots. Sintashta warriors are buried with light two-wheeled chariots, a technology that spreads within centuries to Egypt, India and China.
- Cyrus the Great killed by the Massagetae. Herodotus says Cyrus died fighting Queen Tomyris east of the Caspian, who dipped his severed head in a skin full of blood.
- Alexander marries Roxana. After two years of hard fighting in Bactria and Sogdiana, Alexander marries the daughter of a Sogdian noble to secure the region.
- Zhang Qian travels west. The Han envoy Zhang Qian sets out to find the Yuezhi. His reports of Fergana, Bactria and Parthia lead to the opening of the Silk Road.
- Orkhon inscriptions raised. Stone memorials for Kul Tigin and Bilge Khan in the Orkhon valley record the history of the Turks in their own runic script.
- Battle of Talas. An Abbasid army defeats Tang forces near the Talas river after the Karluks change sides, ending Chinese expansion into Central Asia.
- Uyghur khagan adopts Manichaeism. Bogu Khagan converts after meeting Manichaean priests in Luoyang, making the Uyghurs the only state ever to adopt the religion officially.
- Battle of Qatwan. The Kara-Khitai defeat Sultan Sanjar near Samarkand, a defeat of a Muslim power that helped feed the European legend of Prester John.
- Temujin proclaimed Genghis Khan. A great assembly on the Onon river names Temujin ruler of all the felt-tent peoples, founding the Mongol Empire.
- Mongols sack Bukhara and Samarkand. Genghis Khan's armies storm the great cities of Transoxiana, killing or deporting much of their populations and destroying the Khwarazmian Empire.
- Ulugh Beg's observatory. Timur's grandson builds a huge observatory at Samarkand, whose star catalog was the most accurate since Ptolemy.
- Altan Khan names the Dalai Lama. The Tumed Mongol ruler Altan Khan meets the Tibetan lama Sonam Gyatso and gives him the title Dalai Lama, starting the Mongols' conversion to Tibetan Buddhism.
- Yermak takes Sibir. A Cossack band hired by the Stroganov merchants captures Qashliq, the capital of the Khanate of Sibir, opening Siberia to Russia.
- Treaty of Nerchinsk. Russia and Qing China sign their first treaty, fixing the border north of the Amur. Jesuit priests interpret the negotiations in Latin.
- Destruction of the Dzungars. The Qianlong emperor sends armies against the Dzungar Khanate. War, massacre and smallpox kill most of the Dzungar people by 1758.
- Russia captures Tashkent. General Mikhail Chernyayev storms Tashkent, the largest city of Central Asia, starting Russia's conquest of the khanates.
- Tunguska explosion. An exploding meteor flattens about 80 million trees over 2,000 square kilometers of Siberian forest near the Podkamennaya Tunguska river.
- Kazakh famine. Forced collectivization and the seizure of livestock kill about 1.5 million Kazakhs between 1930 and 1933, perhaps 40 percent of the nation.
- Sputnik launched from Baikonur. The Soviet Union launches the first artificial satellite from the Kazakh steppe, and in 1961 Yuri Gagarin's flight leaves from the same cosmodrome.
- The Aral Sea begins to shrink. Soviet cotton irrigation diverts the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, and within fifty years the fourth-largest lake in the world loses most of its area.
- Central Asian republics become independent. As the Soviet Union dissolves, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan become sovereign states for the first time.