East Turkistan Map

The current territorial size of East Turkistan is 1.65 million square kilometers (635 square miles). According to official records, the original territory of East Turkistan was 1,82 million square kilometers. The neighboring Chinese province annexed part of the territory as a result of the Chinese communist invasion of 1949.

East Turkistan borders with China and Mongolia to the east, Russia to the north, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the west, and Tibet to the south.

East Turkistan has a rich history and a diverse geography. It has grand deserts, magnificent mountains, and beautiful rivers, grasslands and forests.

East Turkistan People

East Turkistan is the homeland of the Turkic speaking Uyghurs and other Central Asian peoples such as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars and Tajiks. According to latest Chinese census, the current population of East Turkistan is 18.62 million, including 7.49 million ethnic Chinese illegal settled in East Turkistan after 1949 (the ethnic Chinese numbered 200,000 in 1949). The population of Muslims is slightly over 11 million; among these, the 8,68 million Uyghurs constitute the majority. However, the Uyghur sources put the population of Uyghurs more than 20 million.

East Turkistan is located beyond the logical boundary of China, the Great Wall. Historically and culturally, East Turkistan is part of Central Asia, not of China. The people of East Turkistan are not Chinese; they are Turks of Central Asia.

Uyghur Language

Uyghur Language is a very ancient langauge with more than 20 million speakers by Uyghur estimate and more than 8.6 million speakers by Chinese estimate. Uyghur belongs to Turkic branch of Ural-Altaic family of languages. It is almost identical to the languaes of Turkish, Azeri, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Tartar, Bashkurt, Chuvash, Yakut and other Turkic dialects.

Uyghur was originally written with the Orhun Uyghur alphabet, a script derived from or inspired by the Sogdian script. From the the 13th century until the early 20th century, Uyghur was written with a version of the Arabic alphabet known as 'Chagatai'. During 20th century a number of versions of the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets were adopted to write Uyghur in different Uyghur-speaking regions. However the Latin alphabet was unpopular and in 1985 the Arabic script was reinstated as the official script for Uyghurs in East Turkistan.

East Turkistan History

Records show that the Uyghurs have a history of more than 4000 years in East Turkistan. Throughout the history, independent states established by the ancestors of Uyghurs and other indigenous people thrived and prospered in the lands of East Turkistan. Situated along a section of the legendary Silk Road, Uyghurs played an important role in cultural exchanges between the East and West and developed a unique culture and civilization of their own.

In the early history, the Uyghurs, like most of the other Turkic peoples of Central Asia, believed in Shamanism, Manichesim and Buddhism. Starting from 1St century A.D and until the arrival of Islam, East Turkistan became one the great centers of Buddhist civilization.

Contacts between Uyghurs and Muslims started at the beginning of 9th century and conversion to Islam began. During the reign of Karahanidin kings, the Islamization of Uyghur society accelerated. Kashgar, the capital of Karahadin Kingdom, quickly became one of the major learning centers of Islam. Art, sciences, music and literature flourished as Islamic religious institutions nurtured the pursuit of an advanced culture. In this period, hundreds of world-renowned Uyghur scholars emerged. Thousands of valuable books were written. Among these works, the Uyghur scholar Yusup Has Hajip’s book, Kutadku Bilig (The knowledge for Happiness, 1069-1070) and Mahmud Kashgar’s Divan-I Lugat-it Turk (a dictionary of Turk language) are most influential.

The Manchu Invasion

The independent Uyghur Kingdom in East Turkistan - the Seyyid Kingdom, also known as Yarkent kingdom, was invaded by Manchu rulers of China in 1759 and the East Turkistan was annexed to the Manchu Empire. The Manchus ruled East Turkistan as a military colony from 1759 to 1862. During this period, the Uyghurs and other people in East Turkistan valiantly opposed the foreign rule in their land. They revolted 42 times against Manchu rule with the purpose of regaining their independence. The Manchu were finally expelled in 1864 and Uyghurs established Yetteshahar State. However, the independence was short lived, Manchus invaded the East Turkistan again in 1876. After eight years of bloody war, the Manchu empire formally annexed East Turkistan into its territories and renamed it “Xinjiang” (meaning “New Territory”) on November 18, 1884.

Chinese Rule in East Turkistan

After Chinese Nationalists overthrew the Manchu Empire in 1911, East Turkistan fell under the rule of warlords of Chinese ethnicity who came to dominate provincial administration in the later years of Manchu Empire. The Chinese central government had little control over East Turkistan at this period. The Uyghurs, who wanted to free themselves from foreign domination, staged numerous uprisings against Chinese rule, and twice (once in 1933 and 1944) succeeded in setting up an independent East Turkistan Republic. However, these independent republics were overthrown by the military intervention and political intrigue of the Soviet Union.

In October of 1949, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops marched into East Turkistan, effectively ending the ETR. The Chinese communists organized Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the territory of East Turkistan.

The Chinese communist reign in East Turkistan can be considered the darkest chapters in the history of Uyghurs and East Turkistan. Under the current conditions, the very existence of Uyghur nation is under threat. The Chinese communist government has been carrying out a vicious campaigns against Uyghurs and other indigenous people of East Turkistan in order to permanently annex the lands of East Turkistan.

Despite all the brutal and destructive campaigns by the Chinese government against the identity and existence, the Uyghurs and other indigenous people of East Turkistan refuse to be subjugated by China and are carrying on resistance torch, handed down to them by their ancestors, against Chinese occupation.

East Turkistan Geography

East Turkistan covers an area of 1.65 square kilometers (635 square miles), which is twice as large as the Republic of Turkey or four times as large as the American state of California. More than 43 percent of East Turkistan is covered by deserts and another 40 percent is covered by mountain ranges.

The main characteristic of this huge land is two basins bounded by three mountain ranges. The two basins are Tarim basin in the south, which is 530,000 square kilometer, and the Junggar basin in the north, which covers an area of 304.200 square kilometers. Tarim basin contains one of the largest deserts in the world—the Taklamakan desert. The Junggar basin contains the Kurbantunggut desert.

Tengritagh mountain (Heavenly mountain) crosses the central part of East Turkistan dividing the country into south and north. Within East Turkistan, the Tengritagh mountain is 1700 kilometers long and 250-300 kilometers wide. Altay mountain in north forms the border of East Turkistan, Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan. Its section within East Turkistan is 400 kilometers. The Kunlun mountain is the south is the border between East Turkistan and Tibet.

The most important rivers are the Tarim river (2137 km long), flowing almost the whole length of southern part of East Turkistan and empties into desert; the Ili river, flows west into the Kazakhstan and eventually flows into Lake Balqash; the Irtish river flows northwest out of East Turkistan into the Arctic Ocean; the Karashaar river, flows east from central Tengritagh into Lake Baghrash; the Konche river, starting from the Baghrash lake, originally flows into Lopnur Lake, but now disappears in the desert long before reaching the lake.