The Chaudor tribe leads a powerful Turkmen tribal union in the north of present Turkmenistan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while the Salor tribe is dominant in the south.

One of the Turkmens' principal occupations for centuries after the decline of Mongol rule has been robbing passing caravans.

Their organization is exclusively tribal, and the tribes are either nomadic and independent or subject to neighboring Persia or to the khanates of Khiva and Bukhara.