  tartary (latin: tartaria) or great tartary (latin: tartaria magna) was a name used in the middle ages until the twentieth century to designate the great tract of northern and central asia stretching from the caspian sea and the ural mountains to the pacific ocean inhabited mostly by caucasians. it incorporated the current areas of pontic-caspian steppe, volga-urals, caucasus, siberia, turkestan, mongolia, and manchuria. ==geography and history== tartary was often divided into sections with prefixes denoting the name of the ruling power or the geographical location. thus, western siberia was muscovite or russian tartary, xinjiang and mongolia were chinese or cathay tartary, western turkestan (later russian turkestan) was known as independent tartary, and manchuria was east tartary. as the russian empire expanded eastward and more of tartary became known to europeans, the term fell into disuse. european areas north of the black sea inhabited by turkic peoples were known as little tartary. the "komul desert of the tartary" was mentioned by immanuel kant in his "observations on the feeling of the beautiful and sublime", as a "great far-reaching solitude". ===east tartary=== thumb|500px|card independent tartarie (in yellow) and from chinese tartarie (in violet colour), in 1806 east tartary and maritime tartary are old names for the manchu-inhabited territory extending from the confluence of the river amur with the river ussuri to sakhalin island. this area is now the primorsky krai with vladivostok as regional administrative center. these lands were once occupied by the mohe tribes and jurchen nation; and also by various old kingdoms including goryeo, balhae, liao and the (khitan) kingdoms. according to sheng-wu-chi's ming dynasty chronicle ("our dynasty is informed by military realizations"), in this land the tungus weji, warka and kurka tribes were established. later these were unified in manchu qing empire with nurhaci as their leader and founder. these lands were lost to russia under the treaty of peking. nearest this land lies the ku-ye-dao () or fu-sang (hangul: íì) island, better know
Central_Asia Geography_of_Russia