Key Facts
- Duration
- 1225–1687 (core khanate)
- Peak area
- ~3,500,000 km² (late 13th century)
- Founder
- Chagatai Khan, second son of Genghis Khan
- Successor states
- Moghulistan, Yarkent Khanate, Turpan Khanate
- Final absorption
- Dzungar Khanate, 1680
Imperial Zenith Metrics
Territorial Scale Comparison
Peak area vs modern sovereign states
Historical Trajectory
Phase I: Rise
The Chagatai Khanate originated when Genghis Khan assigned Central Asian territories to his second son Chagatai around 1225. Following the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259, the khanate became functionally independent. At its height in the late 13th century it stretched from the Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea to the Altai Mountains, encompassing much of the territory formerly held by the Qara Khitai.
Phase II: Zenith
At peak extent the khanate commanded the major Silk Road corridors linking China, Persia, and the Middle East across Transoxiana and the Tarim Basin. The ruling class gradually Turkicized and, in many cases, converted to Islam. The khans controlled prosperous oasis cities and lucrative overland trade routes, while nominally acknowledging the supremacy of the Mongol Great Khan until the reign of Kublai Khan.
Phase III: Decline
From 1363 the Timurids steadily stripped away Transoxiana, reducing the khanate to the eastern rump state called Moghulistan. By the late 15th century that remnant fractured into the Yarkent and Turpan khanates. In 1680 the Dzungar Khanate absorbed the remaining Chagatai domains. A vestigial dynasty survived as the Qing-era Kumul Khanate until its abolition by the Republic of China in 1930.
Notable Imperial Reigns
Selected rulers mapping the empire’s trajectory