n.
or Uygur
A Turkic-speaking people of Central Asia who live largely in northwestern China.
About 8,000,000 Uighurs live in China today, and some 300,000 in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. They are among the oldest Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia, first mentioned in Chinese records from the 3rd century AD. In the 8th century they established a kingdom, which was overrun in 840. A Uighur confederacy (7451209), established around the Tien Shan, was overthrown by the Mongol s. This confederacy came to the aid of China's Tang dynasty during the An Lushan Rebellion . The Uighurs of that time professed a Manichaean faith.