The Khanate of Khiva controlled the historic region of Khorezm from 1511 until February 1920. Capital: first Urgench, then Khiva (from 1619).
The khanate went through several dynasties: - Shaybanids (1511–1695) - Ashtarkhanids/Arabshahids (1695–1740s) - Qongrats/Inaq dynasty (1763–1920)
Key moments: - 1717: Peter the Great sends Bekovich-Cherkassky's expedition; 4,000 Russian soldiers are massacred by Khivan forces. - 1839–40: Failed Russian expedition of Perovsky — wiped out by winter cold. - 1873: Russia finally conquers Khiva under General Kaufman. The khan becomes a Russian vassal. - 1920: Red Army takes over. Khan Sayyid Abdulla abdicates.
The vast majority of Ichan Kala's standing monuments (Kalta Minor, Kunya Ark, Tosh-Hovli, Islam Khoja complex) were built during the Qongrat dynasty period (1763–1920) — making Khiva paradoxically the youngest of the three great Silk Road cities in terms of surviving architecture.
The khanate was also one of the last centres of the Central Asian slave trade, only formally abolished under Russian pressure in 1873.
View as raw markdown — optimised for AI agents, LLMs, and programmatic consumption.
Related entries
- Places
Ichan Kala: Khiva's inner city walls
The walled inner city of Khiva — the first UNESCO site inscribed in Central Asia (1990) and the only fully preserved Silk Road oasis city.
- Places
Kalta Minor: the unfinished minaret
Muhammad Amin Khan started building it in 1852 to be Central Asia's tallest minaret. He died in battle in 1855 and construction stopped at 26 metres.
- Places
Kunya Ark: Khivan Khan's palace
The 17th-century palace citadel inside Ichan Kala where the Khivan Khans lived, minted coins, held court and prayed.
- History
The Khanate of Kokand (1709–1876)
A Fergana Valley state that controlled eastern Uzbekistan, parts of Kyrgyzstan and southern Kazakhstan until Russian conquest in 1876. The Khudayar Khan Palace is its architectural legacy.
- History
The Samanid dynasty: Bukhara's golden age
A Persian-speaking dynasty (819–999) that made Bukhara the intellectual capital of the eastern Islamic world — the era of Rudaki, al-Razi, and the birth of New Persian literature.
- History
Al-Biruni: the first comparative anthropologist
A Khwarezmian polymath (973–1048) who calculated Earth's radius to within 1% accuracy, wrote the first objective study of Hinduism, and mastered astronomy, mineralogy, and pharmacology.