MAPS OF HISTORY · HISTORY OF · Kyrgyzstan

ONE LAND · 4 ATLASES

Kyrgyzstan, on the map of history

What was Kyrgyzstan before it was Kyrgyzstan? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History collection — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.

Semirechye — Kara-Khitai (mod. Kyrgyzstan) · The Mongol Empire, 1206–1294

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Russian Turkestan (mod. Kyrgyzstan) · The Russian Revolution, 1905–1924

The Kyrgyz lands entered the revolution already bleeding: the 1916 conscription revolt (the Urkun, “the exodus”) was crushed with such violence that perhaps 100,000–270,000 Kyrgyz and Kazakhs died or perished fleeing over the passes to China — estimates vary enormously, and the memory is still contested. Mountainous and remote, the region was then part of the isolated Turkestan theatre, cut off from central Russia for much of the civil war, reconquered as the Reds broke through in 1919–20, and folded into the Soviet federation.

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Kyrgyzstan · The Great War, 1914–1918

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Kyrgyzstan · The Cold War, 1945–1991

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