10 ATLASES
History of Kyrgyzstan in maps
Kyrgyzstan as it appears in 10 interactive history atlases, from 1206 to 2000: Semirechye — Kara-Khitai, Kyrgyzstan, Russian Turkestan, Soviet Central Asia, Kirghizia. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.
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What was Kyrgyzstan before it was Kyrgyzstan? The sections below follow this land through every era covered by the Maps of History atlases: who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed. Each line links to the dated map. Modern borders serve as an approximation, as each atlas says on the map itself.
Semirechye — Kara-Khitai (mod. Kyrgyzstan) · Mongol Empire
| Beyond the conquests — the opening position | |
| The Mongol Empire |
MONGOL EMPIRE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Kyrgyzstan · Industrial Revolution
| Colony or dependency — the opening position | |
| Colony or dependency |
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Kyrgyzstan (Kirghizia) · Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia
In 1990 mountainous Kyrgyzstan elected the physicist Askar Akayev as its leader. Rapid market reforms helped it gain a reputation during the 1990s as the most open Central Asian state. Yet deadly clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks around Osh in 1990 had already exposed tensions along the Soviet borders drawn across the Ferghana valley.
| The USSR, then Russia — the opening position | |
| Independent neighbours |
MEIJI JAPAN AND POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Russian Turkestan (mod. Kyrgyzstan) · Russian Revolution
Russia acquired the Chu valley and Issyk-Kul in the 1850s and 1860s, then the south when it abolished the khanate of Kokand in 1876. The Kyrgyz lands entered the revolution already bleeding. In the 1916 conscription revolt, the Urkun (“the exodus”), perhaps 100,000–270,000 Kyrgyz and Kazakhs died in the violent suppression or while fleeing over the passes to China. Estimates vary enormously, and the memory remains contested. The mountainous, remote region was part of the Turkestan theatre, cut off from central Russia for much of the civil war. The Reds broke through in 1919–20, reconquered it and folded it into the Soviet federation.
| Neutral or independent — the opening position | |
| The Tsarist empire | |
| Provisional Government, then the Whites | |
| Contested / peasant war | |
| Soviet power |
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Kyrgyzstan · WWI
| The Entente & Allies — the opening position | |
| Russia in revolution |
Soviet Central Asia (mod. Kyrgyzstan) · Chinese Revolution
| Foreign empires — British, French, Russian, American — the opening position |
CHINESE REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Kirghizia (Kirghiz SSR from 1936) · Stalin’s Soviet Union
Kirghizia became an autonomous region of Russia in 1924 and a union republic in 1936. Its herders, like the Kazakhs, were forced onto collective farms. Many took their animals across the mountains into China. Chechens, Ingush and Balkars deported in 1944 were sent to the republic. Its capital, Pishpek, had become Frunze in 1926, named for the civil-war commander born there.
| The Soviet Union — the opening position |
STALIN’S SOVIET UNION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Kyrgyzstan · Road to WW2
| Neutral & unaligned — the opening position | |
| Aggressor clients & partners | |
| Democracies & powers fighting them |
ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Kyrgyzstan · Cold War
| USSR & Warsaw Pact — the opening position | |
| Non-aligned & neutral |
COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Soviet Central Asia (mod. Kyrgyzstan) · Mao’s China
| Beijing’s allies and friends — the opening position | |
| Beijing’s adversaries |
MAO’S CHINA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
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