Tatar (term) in the context of "Tatars"

Tatars (/ˈtɑːtərz/ TAH-tərz) are a group of Turkic speaking peoples found across Eastern Europe and Asia who bear the name "Tatar".

Initially, the ethnonym Tatar possibly referred to the Tatar confederation. That confederation was eventually incorporated into the Mongol Empire when Genghis Khan unified the various steppe tribes. Historically, the term Tatar (or Tartar) was applied by western cartographers to anyone from the vast Northern and Central Asian landmass then known as Tartary, a term that was falsely conflated with the Mongol Empire. More recently, the term has come to refer more narrowly to related ethnic groups who call themselves Tatars.