UIGHUR

Chinese (Pinyin) Uygur, Turkic-speaking people of interior Asia who live for the most part in northwestern China, in the Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang; a small number live in the Central Asian republics. There were more than 7,700,000 Uighurs in China in the late 20th century, most of them in Sinkiang; there were also some 300,000 in Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, and Kyrgyzstan. The Uighur language is part of the Turkic language group, and the Uighur are among the oldest Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia. They are mentioned in Chinese records from the 3rd century AD. They first rose to prominence in the 8th century, when they established a kingdom along the Orhon River in what is now north-central Mongolia. In 840 this state was overrun by the Kyrgyz, however, and the Uighur migrated southwestward to the area around the Tien Shan (mountains). There the Uighur formed another independent kingdom in the Turfan region, but this was overthrown by the expanding Mongols in the 13th century. The Uighur are, in the main, a sedentary, village-dwelling people, their habitat being the network of oases formed in the valleys and lower slopes of the Tien Shan, Pamirs, and related mountain systems. The region is one of the most arid in the world; hence, for centuries they have practiced irrigation to conserve their water supply for agriculture. Their principal food crops are wheat, corn (maize), kaoliang (a form of sorghum), and melons. The chief industrial crop is cotton, which has long been grown in the area. Many Uighur are employed in petroleum extraction, mining, and manufacturing in urban centres. The chief Uighur cities are Urumchi, the capital of Sinkiang, and Kashgar, an ancient centre of trade near the Russo-Chinese border. The Uighur have lacked political unity in recent centuries, except for a brief period during the 19th century when they were in revolt against Peking. Their social organization is centred on the village. The Uighur of Sinkiang are Sunnite Muslims.