page_title: Nomadic empire
section_title: Xianbei
hierarchical_section_title: Nomadic empire / Ancient history / Xianbei
caption_attribution_description: English: based on File:Asia laea relief location map.jpg. Data source: partially based on "Mongolian National Atlas" (2009)
context_page_description: Nomadic empires, sometimes also called steppe empires, Central or Inner Asian empires, were the empires erected by the bow-wielding, horse-riding, nomadic people in the Eurasian steppe, from classical antiquity to the early modern era. They are the most prominent example of non-sedentary polities.
  Some nomadic empires consolidated by establishing a capital city inside a conquered sedentary state and then exploiting the existing bureaucrats and commercial resources of that non-nomadic society. In such a scenario, the originally nomadic dynasty may become culturally assimilated to the culture of the occupied nation before it is ultimately overthrown. Ibn Khaldun described a similar cycle on a smaller scale in 1377 in his Asabiyyah theory.
  Historians of the early medieval period may refer to these polities as "khanates". After the Mongol conquests of the 13th century the term orda also came into use — as in "Golden Horde".
context_section_description: The Xianbei state or Xianbei confederation was a nomadic empire which existed in modern-day Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, northern Xinjiang, Northeast China, Gansu, Buryatia, Zabaykalsky Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, Tuva, Altai Republic and eastern Kazakhstan from 156–234 AD. Like most ancient peoples known through Chinese historiography, the ethnic makeup of the Xianbei is unclear. The Xianbei were a northern branch of the earlier Donghu and it is likely at least some were proto-Mongols. After it collapsed, the tribe immigrated to China and founded the Northern Wei Dynasty.
caption: Xianbei Empire
exif: {}