page_title: Nomadic empire
section_title: Khitans
hierarchical_section_title: Nomadic empire / Post-classical history / Mongolic people and Turkic expansion / Khitans
caption_attribution_description: English: Locator map of the Khitan Empire, c. 1000. (Partially based on Atlas of World History (2007) - The World 750-1000, map)
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 Liao dynasty (/ljaʊ/; Khitan: Mos Jælud; traditional Chinese: 遼朝; simplified Chinese: 辽朝; pinyin: Liáo cháo), also known as the Liao Empire, officially the Great Liao (大遼; 大辽; Dà Liáo), or the Khitan (Qidan) State (Khitan: Mos diau-d kitai huldʒi gur), was an empire and imperial dynasty in East Asia that ruled from 916 to 1125 over present-day Northern and Northeast China, Mongolia and portions of the Russian Far East and North Korea. The empire was founded by Yelü Abaoji (Emperor Taizu of Liao), Khagan of the Khitans around the time of the collapse of the Tang dynasty and was the first state to control all of Manchuria. The Liao dynasty was ruled by the Khitan Yelü clan.
caption: "Khitan State"
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