Uyghur people
 |
| Young Uyghur woman at the ruins of Melikawat near Khotan, c. 2005 |
| Total population |
|---|
| 11.257 million |
| Regions with significant populations |
 People’s Republic of China (Xinjiang) Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Turkey Turkmenistan Russia Tajikistan Pakistan |
| Languages |
| Uyghur |
| Religion |
| Islam (mainly Sufi)[1] |
| Related ethnic groups |
| Turkic peoples |
The Uyghur (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر, ULY: Uyghur?; simplified Chinese: 维吾尔; traditional Chinese: 維吾爾; pinyin: Wéiwú’ěr; [ʔʊjˈʁʊː][2]) are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. An estimated 80% of Xinjiang’s Uyghurs live in the southwestern portion of the region, the Tarim Basin.[3]
Large diasporic communities of Uyghurs exist in the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Smaller communities are found in Mongolia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Russia and Taoyuan County of Hunan province in south-central Mainland China.[4] The Uyghur diaspora includes major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, Washington D.C., Munich, Tokyo, Toronto, and Istanbul.[citation needed]
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[edit] Identity
A Uyghur naan baker
Throughout history, the term Uyghur has taken on an increasingly expansive definition. Initially a small coalition of Tiele tribes, it later denoted citizenship in the Uyghur Khaganate. Finally it was expanded to an ethnicity, whose ancestry derives from several distinct populations: including Turkic and Tocharian. The fluid definition of Uyghur and the diverse ancestry of modern Uyghurs are a source of confusion about what constitutes true Uyghur ethnography and ethnogenesis.
The first use of Uyghur as a reference to a political nation occurred during the interim period between the First and Second Göktürk Khaganates (AD 630-684).[5] In modern usage, Uyghur refers to settled Turkic urban dwellers and farmers of Kashgaria or Uyghurstan who follow traditional Central Asian sedentary practices, as distinguished from nomadic Turkic populations in Central Asia. The Bolsheviks reintroduced the term Uyghur to replace the previously used “Turk” or Turki.[6]
Linguist and ethnographer S. Robert Ramsey has argued for inclusion of two other ethnic groups, the Yugur and the Salar, as subgroups of Uyghur (based on similar historical roots for the Yugur, and perceived linguistic similarities for the Salar). These groups are recognized as separate ethnic groups, though, by the Chinese government.[7]
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