Many contemporary western scholars, however, do not consider the modern Uyghurs to be of direct linear descent from the old Uyghur Khaganate of Mongolia. Rather, they consider them to be descendants of a number of peoples, one of them the ancient Uyghurs.

Some Uyghur nationalists claim that they are descended from the Tocharians. Well-preserved Tarim mummies of a people with European physical traits indicate the migration of an Indo-European people into the Tarim area at the beginning of the Bronze Age, around 2,000 BCE.

May 24, 2022 · Human rights groups believe China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls "re-education camps", and...

May 31, 2021 · The Uyghurs are a Muslim minority in China, living in Xinjiang province at a crossroads of culture and empire. Today it's estimated that more than 1 million Uyghur people have been detained in...

1 day ago · Uyghur, a Turkic-speaking people of inner Asia. Uyghurs live primarily in northwestern China, in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where they have been subject to a government crackdown since 2017. A small number of Uyghurs also live in the Central Asian republics.

Feb 14, 2019 · At this time, it was estimated the Uyghur numbered around 76% of the region’s population. Han Chinese – the country’s majority ethnic group – accounted for just 6.2%, with other minority ...

Jun 19, 2019 · The Uyghurs (or Uighurs, Uygurs) are ethically and culturally Turkic people native to East Turkistan, currently occupied by China.They mostly live in the far north-western border region which is the hub of the Eurasian Crossroads.

May 13, 2019 · The Uyghurs are mainly found in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. They are one of China’s officially recognized ethnic minority groups . There are approximately 11.3 million Uyghurs in China and about 1.6 million in other parts of the world.

Modern Uyghurs are thought to be the descendants of a myriad of empires and kingdoms – the Huns, Tocharians and Scythians, the Gokturks and Old Uyghurs, the Idiqut and Qarakhanids, Hotan, Chaghatay, Altisheher, and most recently the two republics of East Turkistan.

Most Uyghurs claim descent from Karabalghasan, the early Uyghur empire in what is now Mongolia, which was conquered by Kyrgyz tribesmen in 840 CE. In the centuries that followed, various Uyghur, Turkic Mongol and Han Chinese powers ruled the region.