View Shopping Cart Your Famous Chinese Account Shopping Help Famous Chinese Homepage China Chinese Chinese Culture Chinese Restaurant & Chinese Food Travel to China Chinese Economy & Chinese Trade Chinese Medicine & Chinese Herb Chinese Art
logo
Search
March 8, 2014
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
Khitan

Wikipedia

 
The Khitan, in Chinese language|Chinese Qidan (契丹 Pinyin: Q?dān), were an ethnic group which dominated much of Manchuria and was classified in Chinese history as one of the Tungus ethnic groups (東胡族 dōng h? z?). They established the Liao dynasty in 907, which was then conquered in 1125 by the Jin dynasty of the Jurchen. There is no clear evidence of any descendant ethnic groups of the Khitan in modern-day Northeast China. Although a number of the nobility of the Liao dynasty escaped the area westwards towards Turkestan, establishing the short-lived Kara-Khitai|Kara-Khitan or Western Liao dynasty, they were in turn absorbed by the local Turkish and Iranic populations and left no influence of themselves. As the Khitan language is still almost completely illegible, it is difficult to create a detailed history of their movements.

Ancestors of the Khitan were the Yuwen clan of the Xianbei, an ethnic group situated in the area covered by the modern Liaoning and Jilin provinces. After their regime was conquered by the Murong clan, the remnants scattered in the modern-day Inner Mongolia and mixed there with the original Mongolic population. They had been identified as a distinct ethnic group since paying tribute to the Northern Wei Dynasty in mid 6th century.

The Khitan were known as خطا in Arabic (Khata) and are mentioned by Muslim chroniclers as they initially fought with Muslims and later converted to Islam.

It is interesting to notice that this name was the origin for the Russian word for China, namely Kitai, as well as an ancient form in Portuguese, Catai.




  • Ethnic groups in Chinese history

  • Kara-Khitai

  • Khitan language


de:Kitan
ja:契丹

Category:Manchuria
Category:History of China
Category:Mongol peoples
Category:Ancient peoples of China

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Khitan".


Last Modified:   2005-04-13


Search
All informatin on the site is © FamousChinese.com 2002-2005. Last revised: January 2, 2004
Are you interested in our site or/and want to use our information? please read how to contact us and our copyrights.
To post your business in our web site? please click here. To send any comments to us, please use the Feedback.
To let us provide you with high quality information, you can help us by making a more or less donation: