ABSTRACT
Uyghurs have communities in almost all of the newly independent Central Asian Republics varying from the largest one in Kazakhstan to the smallest group in Tajikistan. With the exception of Uyghurs living in the Ili Valley borderlands, which were annexed by the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century, who finally found themselves in present-day Kazakhstan, most of the Uyghur communities in Central Asia were formed as a result of Xinjiang’s (East Turkestan) geographic proximity and migrations caused by internal events in the Uyghur homeland as well as international relations. Two main regions densely populated by the Uyghurs in Central Asia until recent times were the Semirechye Valley in present Kazakhstan, and the Ferghana Valley (Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan). These two main Uyghur groups in Central Asia were made up respectively by the northern Uyghurs (Taranchi) from the Kulja region and those who migrated from Kashgaria, the southern realm of East Turkestan. These two communities differed not only in the regional representation of the Uyghur population in their homeland, but also in the history of their establishment.
