Chagatai Khanate in the context of "Timur"

The Pax Mongolica (Latin for "Mongol Peace"), less often known as Pax Tatarica ("Tatar Peace"), is a historiographical term modeled after the original phrase Pax Romana which describes the stabilizing effects of the conquests of the Mongol Empire on the social, cultural and economic life of the inhabitants of the vast Eurasian territory that the Mongols conquered in the 13th and 14th centuries. The term is used to describe the eased communication and commerce that the unified administration helped to create and the period of relative peace that followed the Mongols' vast and violent conquests.

The conquests of Genghis Khan (r. 1206–1227) and his successors, spanning from Southeast Asia to Eastern Europe, effectively took over the Eastern world with the Western world. The Silk Road, connecting trade centres across Asia and Europe, came under the sole rule of the Mongol Empire. It was commonly said that "a maiden bearing a nugget of gold on her head could wander safely throughout the realm". Despite the political fragmentation of the Mongol Empire into four khanates (Yuan dynasty, Golden Horde, Chagatai Khanate and Ilkhanate), nearly a century of conquest and civil war was followed by relative stability in the early 14th century. The end of the Pax Mongolica was marked by the disintegration of the khanates and the outbreak of the Black Death in Asia which spread along trade routes to much of the world in the mid-14th century.

The division of the Mongol Empire began after Möngke Khan died in 1259 in the siege of Diaoyu Castle with no declared successor, precipitating infighting between members of the Tolui family line for the title of khagan that escalated into the Toluid Civil War. This civil war, along with the Berke–Hulagu war and the subsequent Kaidu–Kublai war, greatly weakened the authority of the great khan over the entirety of the Mongol Empire, and the empire fractured into four khanates: the Golden Horde in Eastern Europe, the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the Ilkhanate in Iran, and the Yuan dynasty in China based in modern-day Beijing – although the Yuan emperors held the nominal title of khagan of the empire.

The four divisions each pursued their own interests and objectives and fell at different times. Most of the western khanates did not recognize Kublai as Great Khan. Although some of them still asked Kublai to confirm the enthronement of their new regional khans, the four khanates were functionally independent sovereign states. The Ilkhanate and the Yuan dynasty had close diplomatic relations, and shared scientific and cultural knowledge, but military cooperation between all four Mongol khanates would never occur again — the united Mongol Empire had disintegrated.

Hotan Prefecture (see also § Etymology) is located in the Tarim Basin region of southwestern Xinjiang, China, bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region to the south and Union Territory of Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan to the west. The vast majority of the Aksai Chin region which is disputed between China and India is administered as part of Hotan Prefecture. The seat of Hotan Prefecture is Hotan and its largest county by population is Karakax County. The vast majority of the residents of the prefecture are Muslim Uyghurs and live around oases situated between the desolate Taklamakan Desert and Kunlun Mountains.

The region was the center of the ancient Iranian Saka Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan. Later, the region was part of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, followed by the Qara Khitai, Chagatai Khanate, Moghulistan and the Dzungar Khanate, which was conquered by the Qing dynasty of China. Hotan became part of Xinjiang under Qing rule. In the 1930s, the Khotan Emirate declared independence from China. The People's Liberation Army entered Hotan in 1949.

The Turco-Mongol or Turko-Mongol tradition was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century among the ruling elites of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate. The ruling Mongol elites of these khanates eventually assimilated into the Turkic populations that they conquered and ruled over, thus becoming known as Turco-Mongols. These elites gradually adopted Islam, as well as Turkic languages, while retaining Mongol political and legal institutions.

The Turco-Mongols founded many Islamic successor states after the collapse of the Mongol khanates, such as the Kazakh Khanate, the Tatar khanates that succeeded the Golden Horde (e.g., Crimean Khanate, Astrakhan Khanate, Khanate of Kazan), and the Timurid Empire, which succeeded the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia. Babur (1483–1530), a Turco-Mongol prince and a descendant of Timur, founded the Mughal Empire, which ruled much of the Indian subcontinent. The Turks and Tatars also ruled part of Egypt, exercising political and military authority during the Mamluk Sultanate.

The Karluk or Qarluq languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family that developed from the varieties spoken by Karluks. By far the largest languages of this branch are Uzbek and Uyghur.

Many Middle Turkic works were written in these languages. The language of the Kara-Khanid Khanate was known as Turki, Ferghani, Kashgari or Khaqani. The language of the Chagatai Khanate was the Chagatai language.

Khuttal, frequently also in the plural form Khuttalan (and variants such as Khutlan, Khatlan, in Chinese sources K'o-tut-lo) was a medieval region and principality on the north bank of the river Oxus (modern Amu Darya), lying between its tributaries Vakhsh and Panj. It corresponds roughly to the modern Khatlon Province of Tajikistan.

The pre-Islamic Principality of Khuttal played an active role, sometimes as an ally, sometimes as an enemy, of the Umayyads during the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana, and it was not until 750/1 that the Abbasids finally established direct control over it. A branch of the Banijurids of Tokharistan ruled over the area under the Abbasids, and acknowledged the suzerainty of the Samanids in the 10th century. The area apparently retained an autonomous line of rulers in the 11th–12th centuries, when it came first under the loose control of the Ghaznavids, and after the middle of the 11th century of the Seljuq Empire. With the decline of Seljuq power, Khuttal passed to the control of the Ghurids and the Khwarazmshahs, under whom no native princely line is known. In the 13th century Khuttal became a part of the Mongol Empire and of its successor, the Chagatai Khanate, emerging once again as an autonomous principality following the latter's disintegration in the mid-14th century. In the 16th century, the Shaybanids took over Khuttal, and the name itself ceases to be used, being replaced by Kulob.

Kaidu, the leader of the Mongol House of Ögedei, fought a war against Kublai Khan and his successor Temür from 1268 to 1301. Kaidu was the de facto khan of the Chagatai Khanate, while Kublai was the founder of the Yuan dynasty. The Kaidu–Kublai war followed the Toluid Civil War (1260–1264) and resulted in the permanent division of the Mongol Empire. By the time of Kublai's death in 1294, the Mongol Empire had fractured into four separate polities: the Golden Horde khanate in the northwest, the Chagatai Khanate in the middle, the Ilkhanate in the southwest, and the Yuan dynasty in the east based in modern-day Beijing. Although Temür later made peace with the three western khanates in 1304 after Kaidu's death, the four successor states of the Mongol Empire continued their own separate development and fell at different times.