The Oghuz Turks control western Kazakstan from the ninth through the eleventh centuries; the Kimak and Kipchak peoples, also of Turkic origin, control the east at roughly the same time.

The large central desert of Kazakstan is still called Dashti-Kipchak, or the Kipchak Steppe.

Invaders destroy the Karluk state in the late ninth century and establish the large Kara-Khanid state, which occupies a region known as Transoxania, the area north and east of the Oxus River (the present-day Syr Darya), extending into what is now China.