Moghulistan (Mughalistan, Moghul Khanate) is a Mongol breakaway khanate of the Chagatai Khanate and a historical geographic area north of the Tian Shan mountain range, on the border of Central Asia and East Asia.
That area today includes parts of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and northwest China (Xinjiang).
A khanate nominally rules over the area from the mid-fourteenth century until the late seventeenth century, although it is debatable whether it was a continuation of the Chagatai Khanate, an independent khanate, or a tributary state to Ming Dynasty China.Beginning in the mid-fourteenth century a new khanate, in the form of a nomadic tribal confederacy headed by a member of the family of Chagatai, arose in the region of the Ili River.
It is therefore considered to be a continuation of the Chagatai Khanate, but it is also referred to as the Moghul Khanate, since its tribal inhabitants were originally considered to be pure "Moghuls" (i.e., Mongols), in contrast to the mostly Turkic and Turkicised Mongols of the Western Chagatai Khanate.
In actuality, local control rests with local Mongol Dughlats or Sufi Naqshbandi in their respective oases.
Although its rulers enjoy great wealth from the China trade, the khanate is beset by constant civil war and invasions by the Timurid Empire, which emerges from the western part of the erstwhile Chagatai Khanate.
Independence-minded khans create their own domains in cities like Kashgar and Turfan.
Eventually it is overcome by the Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, and Oirats.
