11 Facts About Karluks

Karluks were a prominent nomadic Turkic tribal confederacy residing in the regions of Kara-Irtysh and the Tarbagatai Mountains west of the Altay Mountains in Central Asia.

Karluks gave their name to the distinct Karluk group of the Turkic languages, which includes the Uyghur, Uzbek and Ili Turki languages.

Karluks were known as a coherent ethnic group with autonomous status within the Gokturk khaganate and the independent states of the Karluk yabghu, Karakhanids and Qarlughids before being absorbed in the Chagatai Khanate of the Mongol empire.

Karluks conquered the Karluks in the west, the Kyrgyz in the north, and took the title Yizhuchebi Khagan.

The Karluks allied with the Tiele and their leaders the Uyghurs against the Turkic Kaganate, and participated in enthroning the victorious head of the Uyghur.

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Later, the Karluks spread from the valley of the river Kerlyk along the Irtysh River in the western part of the Altay to beyond the Black Irtysh, Tarbagatai, and towards the Tien Shan.

The Karluks inherited a vast multi-ethnic region, whose diverse population was not much different from its rulers.

The Karluks had adopted and developed the Turkic literary language of Khoresm, established in Bukhara and Samarkand, which after Mongol conquest became known as the Chagatai language.

The Kara-Khitans, who were invited by the Khwarazmians to conquer the lands of the Seljuks as well as in response to an appeal to intervene by the Karluks who were involved in a conflict with the Karakhanids, then advanced to Samarkand.

In Turkmenistan, the Karluks are part of the Arabachy ethnographic group of Turkmens living in the Garlyk etrap of the Lebap velayat.

Arab historian Al Masudi stated that, among Turkic peoples, the Karluks were "the most beautiful in form, the tallest in stature and the most lordly in appearance".