Turkestan

Turkestan is a historical name for a large part of inner Asia, lying between the Caspian Sea in the west and the Gobi Desert in the east, with Siberia to the north and Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tibet to the south. The name is of Persian origin and means land of the Turks, because the area is mainly inhabited by Turkic peoples, with Russian and Tajik minorities. Turkestan is conventionally divided into West Turkestan, which belonged to the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, and East Turkestan, which forms part of China and is identified either with the Tarim Basin or with Xinjiang as a whole. The borders have never been sharply fixed. Over its long history the region sat on the Silk Road and was crossed or ruled by many powers, from the Huns and Achaemenids to the Arab caliphate, the Mongols and the Qara Khitai.