Outer Mongolia in the context of "Qing dynasty in Inner Asia"

Inner Asia refers to the northern and landlocked regions spanning North, Central, and East Asia. It includes parts of western and northeast China, as well as southern Siberia. The area overlaps with some definitions of "Central Asia", mostly the historical ones, but certain regions that are often included in Inner Asia, such as Manchuria, are not a part of Central Asia by any of its definitions. Inner Asia may be regarded as the western and northern "frontier" of China proper and as being bounded by East Asia proper, which consists of China proper, Japan, and Korea.

The extent of Inner Asia has been understood differently in different periods. "Inner Asia" is sometimes contrasted to "China proper", that is, the territories originally unified under the Qin dynasty with majority Han populations. By the year 1800, Chinese Inner Asia consisted of four main areas, namely Manchuria (modern Northeast China and Outer Manchuria), the Mongolian Plateau (Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia), Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan or East Turkestan), and Tibet. Many of these areas had been only recently conquered by the Qing dynasty of China and, during most of the Qing period, they were governed through administrative structures different from those of the older Chinese provinces. A Qing government agency, the Lifan Yuan, supervised the empire's Inner Asian regions, also known as Chinese Tartary. The frontier regions of China proper—Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan—are also sometimes included as part of Inner Asia.

The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (Chinese: 西夏; pinyin: Xī Xià; Wade–Giles: Hsi Hsia), officially the Great Xia (大夏; Dà Xià; Ta Hsia), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as Mi-nyak to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led imperial dynasty of China that existed from 1038 to 1227. At its peak, the dynasty ruled over modern-day north-central China, including parts of Ningxia, Gansu, eastern Qinghai, Northern Shaanxi, North Eastern Xinjiang, and Southwest Inner Mongolia, and Southernmost Outer Mongolia, measuring about 800,000 square kilometres (310,000 square miles).

The capital of Western Xia was Xingqing (modern Yinchuan); another major Xia city and archaeological site is Khara-Khoto. Western Xia was annihilated by the Mongols in 1227. Most of its written records and architecture were destroyed, so the founders and history of the empire remained obscure until 20th-century research in China and the West. Today the Tangut language and its unique script are extinct, only fragments of Tangut literature remain.

Tuva (/ˈtuːvə/; Russian: Тува [tʊˈva]), or Tyva (/ˈtɪvə/; Tuvan: Тыва [tʰɤ̀ʋɐ]), officially the Republic of Tyva, is a republic of Russia. Tuva lies at the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the federal subjects of the Altai Republic, Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, Khakassia, and Krasnoyarsk Krai, and shares an international border with Mongolia to the south. Tuva has a population of 336,651 (2021 census). Its capital city is Kyzyl, in which more than a third of the population reside.

Historically part of Outer Mongolia as Tannu Uriankhai during the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China, Tuva broke away in 1911 as the Uryankhay Republic following the Xinhai Revolution, which created the Republic of China. It became a Russian protectorate in 1914 and was replaced by the nominally independent Tuvan People's Republic in 1921 (known officially as Tannu Tuva until 1926), recognized only by its neighbors the Soviet Union and Mongolia, before being annexed into the former in 1944. A majority of the population are ethnic Tuvans who speak Tuvan as their native tongue, while Russian is spoken natively by the Russian minority; both are official and widely understood in the republic. The Great Khural is the regional parliament of Tuva.

The Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) was a socialist state in Central and East Asia that existed from 1924 to 1992. A one-party state ruled by the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, it occupied the historical region of Outer Mongolia and functioned as a satellite state of the Soviet Union for its entire history. Geographically positioned between the Soviet Union and China, the MPR became the world's second socialist state. It is the predecessor of the modern state of Mongolia.

The state was established in 1924 following the Mongolian Revolution of 1921, which was supported by the Soviet Red Army. Under the rule of Khorloogiin Choibalsan, the government aligned closely with Soviet policies, undertaking Stalinist repressions from 1937 to 1939 that resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 people, including the near-total destruction of the country's Buddhist clergy. The MPR's army fought alongside the Soviets in the 1939 Battles of Khalkhin Gol against Japan, and its independence was formally recognized by China after a 1945 referendum.

The Yuan dynasty ruled over the Mongolian Plateau, including both Inner and Outer Mongolia as well as part of southern Siberia, between 1271 and 1368. The Mongolian Plateau is where the ruling Mongol Borjigin clan of the Yuan dynasty came from, thus it enjoyed a somewhat special status during the Yuan dynasty, although the capital of the dynasty had been moved from Karakorum to Khanbaliq (modern Beijing) since the beginning of Kublai Khan's reign, and Mongolia had been converted into a regular province, known as the Lingbei Province (Chinese: 嶺北行省), by the early 14th century.

The Dzungar Khanate (Mongolian: ᠵᠡᠭᠦᠨᠭᠠᠷ ᠣᠯᠣᠰ Зүүнгар Улс), also known as the Zunghar Khanate or Junggar Khanate, was a nomadic khanate of Oirat Mongol origin. At its greatest extent, it covered an area from southern Siberia in the north to present-day Kyrgyzstan in the south, and from present-day west of Mongolia and the Great Wall of China in the east to present-day Kazakhstan in the west. The core of the Dzungar Khanate is today part of northern Xinjiang, also called Dzungaria.

About 1620 the western Mongols, known as the Oirats, united in the Junggar Basin in Dzungaria. In 1678, Galdan received from the Dalai Lama the title of Boshogtu Khan, making the Dzungars the leading tribe within the Oirats. The Dzungar rulers used the title of Khong Tayiji, which translates into English as "crown prince". Between 1680 and 1688, the Dzungars conquered the Tarim Basin, which is now southern Xinjiang, and defeated the Khalkha Mongols to the east. In 1696, Galdan was defeated by the Qing dynasty and lost Outer Mongolia. In 1717, the Dzungars conquered Tibet, but were driven out in 1720 by the Qing. From 1755 to 1758, Qing China took advantage of a Dzungar civil war to conquer Dzungaria and killed 70–80% of the Dzungar population. The destruction of the Dzungars led to the Qing conquest of Mongolia, Tibet, and the creation of Xinjiang as a political administrative unit.

Mongolia under Qing rule was the rule of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China over the Mongolian Plateau, including the four Outer Mongolian aimags (a.k.a. "leagues") and the six Inner Mongolian aimags from the 17th century to the end of the dynasty. The term "Mongolia" is used here in the broader historical sense, and includes an area much larger than the modern-day state of Mongolia. By the early 1630s Ligdan Khan saw much of his power weakened due to the disunity of the Mongol tribes. He was subsequently defeated by the Later Jin dynasty and died soon afterwards. His son Ejei handed the Yuan imperial seal over to Hong Taiji in 1635, thus ending the rule of the Northern Yuan dynasty in Inner Mongolia. However, the Khalkha Mongols in Outer Mongolia continued to rule until they were overrun by the Dzungar Khanate in 1690, and they submitted to the Qing dynasty in 1691.

The Qing dynasty ruled Inner and Outer Mongolia for over 200 years. During this period, Qing rulers established separate administrative structures to govern each region. While the empire maintained firm control in both Inner and Outer Mongolia, the Mongols in Outer Mongolia (which is further from the capital Beijing) enjoyed a higher degree of autonomy, and also retained their own language and culture during this period.

The Mongolian Revolution of 1911 occurred when the region of Outer Mongolia declared its independence from the Manchu-led Qing China during the Xinhai Revolution. A combination of factors, including economic hardship and failure to resist Western imperialism, led many in China to be unhappy with the Qing government. When a new program to settle Mongolia with ethnic Han and assimilate the natives was unveiled, it was met with resistance that resulted in Mongol independence from the Qing Empire. Many Barga and Inner Mongolian chieftains assisted in the revolution and became the revolution's leaders.