🇰🇿 Kazakhstan

The Botai population of northern Kazakhstan is credited with the earliest domestication of the horse. This innovation underpinned the mobility of later steppe pastoral societies and is central to Kazakhstan's claim as the cradle of horse culture.

Medieval statehood on the territory of present-day Kazakhstan began with the establishment of the Turkic Khaganate in the mid-6th century. It marked the start of a continuous tradition of steppe political organisation later claimed by Kazakh historiography.

Chinese forces broke the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and incorporated its lands into the Tang dynasty. Turkic political power in the eastern steppe was extinguished for half a century.

The Western Turkic Khaganate fell to Tang armies, following the fate of its eastern counterpart. Its territories later hosted successor Turkic polities in the lands of modern Kazakhstan.

Turkic political power was restored when Kutlug Ilterish Qaghan re-established the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. The restored state maintained steppe autonomy against Tang authority until later internal fragmentation.

Üch-elik founded the Turgesh Khaganate in the territory of the defunct Western Turkic Khaganate. It became the principal organised power of southern Kazakhstan in the early eighth century.

Islam arrived in the territory of present-day Kazakhstan with the Arabs in the eighth century. It became the dominant faith of the region and remains the religion of about seven in ten Kazakhstanis.

The Turgesh Khaganate fought sustained campaigns against Arab advances into Central Asia during the 720s and 730s. It was ultimately defeated in the mid-eighth century, coinciding with the fragmentation of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate.

The Kimek Khanate controlled much of western and central Kazakhstan, its rulers adopting the title of khagan. The state was eventually conquered by the Kipchaks, who became the dominant steppe power.

The Karluks established their own khaganate in southern Kazakhstan, though their rulers retained the older title of yabghu. Pressure from the Samanid Empire later drew them into the rise of the Karakhanid state.

Kipchak elites shaped Khwarazmian politics and their cavalry became a major force within the empire by the twelfth century. They contributed to Khwarazmian expansion, including the conquest of the Karakhanid state.

Ethnic Kazakhs, a mix of Turkic and Mongol nomadic tribes, migrated to the region by the 13th century but were rarely united as a single nation.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century the western and northern lands of present-day Kazakhstan came under Jochi, while the south fell to the Chagatai Ulus. The Jochid domain was further split between Batu and Orda, laying the framework in which Kazakh ethnogenesis later occurred.

Conflict between Khwarazm and Genghis Khan in 1218 triggered the Mongol conquest of Central Asia. The territory of present-day Kazakhstan was incorporated into the Mongol Empire, reshaping its political order for centuries.

Batu proved a capable administrator, extending Jochid overlordship over the Rus' principalities, Georgia, Armenia, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and parts of Iran. He is also credited with founding several Golden Horde cities.

On ascending the throne Möngke Temür adopted the title of Just Great Khan, and the Golden Horde became officially known as the Ulug Ulus, the 'Great State'. The change signalled the Horde's self-assertion as a sovereign empire.

At a kurultai on the Talas River the three princes allied to preserve their independence from the Great Khan Kublai. The move confirmed the political separation of the western Mongol uluses.

The powerful noble Nogai, who had extended his influence over Bulgaria, Vidin and Serbia and dealt directly with the Egyptian sultan, engineered a change of khan in 1287. His dominance illustrated the growing power of magnates over the Jochid throne.

Under Özbeg Khan Islam became the official religion of the Golden Horde and the state underwent administrative reform. Golden Horde rule further propagated Islam among the tribes of the region during the fourteenth century.

Jani Beg succeeded Özbeg in 1341 and is regarded in Kazakh oral tradition as the ruler of the Horde's Golden Age, ending a century of conflict with the Ilkhanate by conquering parts of northern Iran. His death on campaign in 1357 opened the era of instability known as the Great Troubles.

Dynastic conflict shattered central authority, and the rulers of the Blue Horde asserted independence while the descendants of Tuqa-Timur rose to power. The most prominent, Urus Khan, seized the throne at Sarai before returning to the Ulytau and Syr Darya regions.

Following the death of Urus Khan, Tokhtamysh took Sarai and brought the Jochid lands back under a single ruler. It was the last effective reunification of the Golden Horde.

After Mamai's defeat at Kulikovo in 1380, Tokhtamysh invaded Rus' and sacked Moscow, re-imposing tribute on the Russian principalities. He restored authority over Khwarazm in 1383 and expanded into the Caucasus.

Timur invaded the Dasht-i Qipchaq and beat Tokhtamysh on the Kondurcha, aided by the defecting Manghit noble Edigu. Timur withdrew with booty while Tokhtamysh retreated to the Volga and had rebuilt his strength by 1393.

After a bribed emir's defection broke Tokhtamysh's left flank, Timur destroyed his army and drove him from the throne. In 1395–1396 Timur's forces ravaged the North Caucasus, Volga region and Crimea, wrecking the Horde's cities, trade and economy.

Edigu allied with Urus Khan's grandson Temür Qutlugh and placed him on the throne, exercising real power himself. In 1399 he crushed Tokhtamysh and his Lithuanian allies, and after Edigu's death the Horde fragmented into numerous uluses.

With the disintegration of the Golden Horde by the mid-fifteenth century, Kerei and Janibek established the Kazakh Khanate over an area roughly corresponding to modern Kazakhstan. The Khanate is the direct political ancestor of the Kazakh nation-state.

According to Vasily Bartold the Kazakhs likely adopted the name during the fifteenth century; the Turkic word qazaq had been recorded in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century dictionaries. The term Özbek-Qazaq appears in Turko-Persian sources from the mid-sixteenth century.

The deaths of Tokhtamysh and Timur in 1405 removed the two rivals who had dominated the steppe. Timur's empire began to break apart, and no ruler again held authority over the whole Ulus of Jochi.

Baraq, grandson of Urus Khan, took control of the Blue Horde and captured Sarai after defeating Khudaydat and Ulugh Muhammad. His defeat by Ulugh Muhammad in 1428 ended western ambitions; his son Janibek became a founder of the Kazakh Khanate.

Under Burunduk and then Kasym the Khanate became a nomadic empire reaching from the Caspian and Aral to the upper Irtysh and the Altai approaches, reportedly fielding 200,000 cavalry. Many historians treat Kasym's reign as the starting point of a distinct and sovereign Kazakh state.

Successive rule by Kasym's three sons sapped the Khanate's power and began its disintegration into three separate hordes. Haq-Nazar Khan later restored the unity of the three hordes and launched systematic campaigns into Transoxiana.

By the seventeenth century the Kazakh Khanate was recorded as divided into Senior, Middle and Junior Zhuzes, each with its own nomadic territories. This tripartite structure shaped Kazakh politics and later Russian conquest.

Tauke pursued an active foreign policy, intervening in Moghulistan succession disputes and maintaining diplomatic relations with Russia through five embassies. He also defeated Cossacks who had joined the Bulavin Rebellion.

After Tursun Muhammad Khan usurped power in the 1610s, Esim retreated to the Yarkent Khanate and allied with Khan Abd ar-Rahim before returning to defeat Tursun. He destroyed the Katagan clan, beat the Oirats and forced Imamkuli to renounce claims on the Syr Darya cities.

From 1635 the Kazakhs fought the newly established Dzungar Khanate, a struggle that dominated their external relations for over a century. Tauke Khan later won a reputation as a commander in these wars, leading an army of 80,000.

The area was progressively absorbed by the Russian Empire during the 18th century as the Kazakh hordes accepted Russian protection and then rule.

Forty-six forts and ninety-six redoubts, including Omsk (1716), Semipalatinsk (1718), Pavlodar (1720), Orenburg (1743) and Petropavlovsk (1752), were constructed to block Kazakh and Oirat raids. Russia's first outpost, Orsk, dated from 1735, and the line became the base for later southward expansion.

With Tauke's death the Khanate ceased to function as a single polity and the three hordes became effectively separate khanates. The fragmentation left the Kazakhs exposed to the Dzungar onslaught that followed.

After concluding a truce with Qing China, the Dzungar ruler struck Kazakh lands, whose people fled abandoning livestock, yurts and property. Mass migration beyond the Emba and Ural rivers and into Mawarannahr followed, so extensive that it threatened the Kalmyk Khanate.

Organised resistance to the Dzungars began in 1726 when the militias of the three zhuzes united, led by the military elite and batyrs rather than the Chinggisid khans. Kazakh forces defeated Oirat armies in 1727–1730, and Tsewang Rabtan failed to subjugate any zhuz.

At the height of Dzungar power, having defeated China in 1731–1732, Galdan Tseren brought the Senior zhuz under control and beat the Middle zhuz. Kazakh fortunes reached their lowest point before the Dzungar collapse.

Kazakh campaigns into Dzungaria from 1752 to 1755, in which Ablai Sultan led Middle Zhuz forces, weakened Dzungar cohesion so far that the Qing invasion met little resistance. The Dzungar Khanate was eliminated, leaving the Kazakh khanates briefly the dominant power in Inner Asia while Russia and Qing China moved in.

From the late nineteenth century Kazakh intellectuals opposed imperial assimilation policies while adapting Russian-style education to Kazakh needs. Figures such as Shoqan Walikhanov and Abai Qunanbaiuly (1845–1904) created a secular culture unparalleled elsewhere in Asian Russia.

From about 1813 until the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, Russia expanded its administrative system, garrisons and language into Central Asia in rivalry with the British Empire. The tsars came to rule most of the territory of the present republic.

The abolition of the khanship in 1822 dismantled the last formal Kazakh political institution and provoked the uprising of Sultan Qasym in 1824–1827. Russian control shifted from nominal suzerainty to direct administration during the 1820s.

Kenesary led the final attempt to restore the Kazakh Khanate, waging armed struggle against Russian authorities from 1837 until he was killed in 1847. His memory has been reassessed repeatedly, from national liberation hero to reactionary, and reached Western Europe through Jules Verne's Michael Strogoff (1876).

By the 1860s resistance to Russian rule had intensified as the traditional nomadic way of life and livestock economy were severely disrupted. Famine followed and some Kazakh tribes went into decline.

From the 1890s ever larger numbers of settlers colonised present-day Kazakhstan, especially Semirechye, encouraged by a Migration Department in St Petersburg. About 400,000 Russians arrived during the nineteenth century and around a million Slavs, Germans and Jews in the first third of the twentieth.

The railway's completion in 1906 sharply increased the flow of settlers into the Kazakh steppe. It tied the region into the imperial economy and accelerated competition for land and water.

The most significant uprising against Russian rule saw Kazakhs attack Russian and Cossack settlers and military garrisons, with brutal massacres on both sides. Resistance to the communist government continued until late 1919.

In the wake of the Russian Revolution and the collapse of central government in Petrograd, the Alash Orda government was formed as a bid for Kazakh self-rule. Though it existed largely in name, the brief Alash Autonomy represented the first modern Kazakh claim to statehood.

By 1920 the Red Army had defeated White Russian forces in the region, ending the Alash Autonomy. Kazakhstan was absorbed into the emerging Soviet state.

On 26 August 1920 an autonomous republic covering present-day Kazakhstan was created inside the RSFSR, with its administrative centre in the largely Russian town of Orenburg. It was renamed the Kazak ASSR in June 1925 with its centre moved to Kyzylorda, and to Alma-Ata in April 1927.

Forced collectivisation and repression of the traditional elite in the late 1920s and 1930s produced catastrophic famine, with about 1.5 million deaths from starvation, disease and violence, including the famine of 1932–33. Thousands fled to China and many died on the way.

The policy of forcing nomadic herders onto collective farms triggered a famine that killed a large share of the ethnic Kazakh population between 1930 and 1933. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, ranging from around 1.5 million to more than 2 million.

On 5 December 1936 the Kazakh ASSR was detached from the RSFSR and made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, one of eleven union republics, elevating the territory from autonomous status within the Russian federation. Its borders then corresponded to those of modern Kazakhstan, giving the nation its present territorial shape.

Qazaqstan TV broadcast the debate on 29 July 2026 as parties intensified campaigning nationwide ahead of the vote. It was the first time the competing parties had faced each other on national television during the campaign.

The fighter jet went down in Karaganda region on 25 February 2026, but both pilots ejected safely. The cause of the crash was not immediately disclosed.

The blast and subsequent fire struck the Akmola region town on 27 February 2026, one of the deadliest single incidents reported in Kazakhstan during the year. The cause was not immediately confirmed.

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry announced participation in the Abraham Accords after establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. It framed the step as consistent with its balanced, constructive and peaceful foreign policy.

President Tokayev and other Central Asian leaders met President Trump in Washington on 6 November 2025, the first time the region's presidents had visited together. The summit also produced a critical minerals and connectivity agreement between the United States and the five Central Asian states.

The protest in Almaty region on 13 November 2025 targeted China's detention of ethnic Kazakh nationals and included the burning of a portrait of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The arrests highlighted public unease over Kazakhstan's relationship with Beijing.

The launchpad was damaged on 27 November 2025 when the Soyuz MS-28 rocket lifted off carrying three astronauts to the International Space Station. The crew reached orbit safely despite the damage on the ground.

Tokayev used the October 2025 forum to unveil the Alem.ai International Centre for Artificial Intelligence and set a goal of making Kazakhstan a fully digital state within three years. The announcement extended his push to diversify the economy beyond raw materials.

Putin's admission on 9 October 2025 confirmed Russian responsibility for the December 2024 crash near Aktau, which killed 38 people. The aircraft had been diverted from Russian airspace before crashing in Kazakhstan.

In his 8 September 2025 State of the Nation address, Tokayev said the Senate had fulfilled its historic role and proposed a unicameral, fully party-list parliament instead. He said the change would face a year of public discussion before a referendum tentatively planned for 2027.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025, Tokayev set a 2029 target for the rail expansion to strengthen the Trans-Caspian transport route linking China to Europe. The pledge was supported by a locomotive supply deal with the American manufacturer Wabtec.

Official statistics recorded the population surpassing 20 million, up from 17.28 million a decade earlier and an estimated 20.8 million by 2025. The figure reversed the post-independence decline from 16.4 million in 1991 to 14.8 million in 2001 caused largely by ethnic Russian emigration.

On 17 September 2022 the president signed a decree limiting presidential tenure to one seven-year term. That month the capital's name was reverted from Nur-Sultan to Astana, further distancing the state from his predecessor.

Following the invasion, Kazakhstan intensified its long-standing multi-vector approach, balancing relations with Russia, China, the United States and the West while resisting dependence on any one power. A Concept of Foreign Policy for 2020–2030 had been announced on 6 March 2020.

Protests over a sharp rise in fuel prices escalated into nationwide unrest in early January 2022, prompting President Tokayev to request troops from the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation; official figures put the death toll at over 230, though rights groups dispute the true number. Tokayev also took personal control of the Security Council, removing Nazarbayev from that post, in a decisive break with the Nazarbayev-era power structure.

Tokayev took office on 12 June 2019, renaming the capital Nur-Sultan in honour of his predecessor. He established the National Council of Public Trust in June 2019 and announced a 'listening state' concept in July, alongside easing the threshold for party registration.

Nazarbayev, who had led Kazakhstan since Soviet times and through independence, announced his resignation on 19 March 2019 and was succeeded by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. His departure opened incremental efforts at democratisation and political reform, though he retained significant influence and the title Elbasy, or Leader of the Nation, until his powers were curtailed after the 2022 unrest.

The programme sought to raise economic growth through the implementation of digital technologies. Within two years digitisation generated 800 billion tenge, created 120,000 jobs and drew 32.8 billion tenge of investment.

Having closed the Semipalatinsk test site legacy behind it, Kazakhstan signed the nuclear prohibition treaty in 2018. The move reinforced its identity as a champion of disarmament.

On 28 June 2016 Kazakhstan won a two-year Security Council term for 2017–2018 after bidding since 2014. It was the first Central Asian state to sit on the Council.

In January 2015 the government declared that the Kazakh language would move to a Latin script by 2025. The reform was framed as part of a wider cultural reorientation, alongside a projected trilingual future in Kazakh, Russian and English.

Accession in 2015 integrated Kazakhstan into the global trade rules system. By 2018 foreign trade turnover reached $93.5 billion, with exports of $67 billion covering 800 products in 120 countries.

The currency was cut by 19% in February 2014 and by a further 22% in August 2015 amid falling oil prices and the effects of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Growth slowed sharply from 2014 after years of oil-driven expansion.

On 17 October 2013 the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative confirmed that Kazakhstan had a basic and functional process for regular disclosure of natural resource revenues. It was a reputational step in a country long listed as a corruption hotspot.

Kazakhstan became a central land corridor in China's Belt and Road Initiative from 2013. The Khorgos Gateway dry port, whose surrounding special economic zone opened in December 2016, handles trans-Eurasian trains running over 9,000 km between China and Europe.

The 2013 plan committed the country to meeting half its energy needs from alternative and renewable sources by 2050. It was projected to add 3% to GDP and create some 500,000 jobs.

The strategy proposed sweeping socio-economic and political reform to place Kazakhstan among the world's top 30 economies by 2050, with 3% of GDP devoted to research and development. It set out successive five-year plans, green economy targets and new high-technology industries.

Kazakhstan won a seat on the Human Rights Council for the first time on 12 November 2012. The election formed part of a wider drive for multilateral recognition.

The programme set targets including raising research and development spending to 1% of GDP by 2015, a goal missed as the ratio stood at 0.18% in 2013. Its first five-year plan to 2014 focused on car manufacturing, aircraft engineering and rolling stock.

After rapid mid-2000s growth the banking industry crashed in 2008, and system-wide loans fell from 59% of GDP in 2007 to 39% by 2011. The government responded in 2009 by recapitalising banks and supporting real estate, agriculture and SMEs; GDP contracted 1.2% in 2009 before rebounding.

On 1 December 2007 it was announced that Kazakhstan would chair the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2010. It was the first post-Soviet Central Asian state to hold the chairmanship, a significant boost to its international standing.

Otan, led by Nazarbayev, won control of the lower house, with allied blocs AIST and Asar taking most remaining seats and opposition parties largely excluded. The OSCE judged the elections as failing to meet democratic standards.

A new customs code came in on 5 April 2003, a land code on 20 June 2003 and a law reducing tax rates on 29 November 2003. Personal income tax was cut further in July 2006 to flat rates of 5% on dividends and 10% on other income.

The US Department of Commerce recognised Kazakhstan as a market economy in March 2002. In September of that year it became the first CIS country to receive an investment grade credit rating from a major agency.

KazMunayGas was founded in 2002 to represent the state's interests across the oil and gas industry. It gave the government a direct commercial stake in the resource sector that dominates exports.

The five states created the body in 2000 to harmonise trade tariffs and build a free trade zone under a customs union. It renewed post-Soviet economic integration in which Kazakhstan was a leading partner.

Development of enormous oil, gas and mineral reserves from the late 1990s made Kazakhstan's economy larger than those of all the other Central Asian states. Current priorities include exporting energy to world markets, diversifying beyond oil, gas and mining, enhancing competitiveness, developing a multiparty parliament and strengthening foreign relations.

Kazakhstan moved to an accumulative pension system in 1998, and by January 2012 pension assets reached about $17 billion. The sole state-owned fund was privatised in 2006.

On 10 December 1997 the government relocated the capital from Almaty to the northern city then called Akmola, citing seismic risk in Almaty and a wish to develop the country's north. The move symbolised modernisation, control over vast territories and the forging of a new national identity. The city was renamed Astana, then Nur-Sultan in 2019, before reverting to Astana in 2022.

Same-sex relations ceased to be a criminal offence in 1997, though social attitudes remained hostile in most areas. It marked a formal alignment with post-Soviet legal liberalisation.

Non-Muslim ethnic minorities departed in large numbers from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s while a national programme repatriated about a million ethnic Kazakhs. The shift undermined the previous religious diversity and made the country more than 70 per cent Muslim, while forging a cohesive national identity and managing Islamic revivalism remain ongoing challenges.

In December 1994, Kazakhstan joined Ukraine and Belarus in surrendering the nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It had inherited the world's fourth-largest nuclear arsenal at independence.

In 1993 Kazakhstan and Chevron formed the Tengizchevroil joint venture to develop the Tengiz field, one of the world's largest oil fields, under a 40-year arrangement involving Chevron Texaco, ExxonMobil, KazMunayGas and LukArco. It opened the field to major foreign investment, anchoring over $40 billion drawn into extraction since 1993 and becoming a model for Kazakhstan's oil-driven economy; Tengiz remains one of the country's largest sources of export revenue.

The state security service was created on 13 June 1992, shortly after independence. It became the core of the new republic's intelligence and internal security apparatus.

Kazakhstan was admitted to the United Nations on 2 March 1992, months after declaring independence from the Soviet Union. It later became the first Central Asian state to hold a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, in 2017.

Following the failed August 1991 coup in Moscow, Kazakhstan's parliament declared independence on 16 December 1991, days after the Soviet Union's other republics and just ten days before the union formally dissolved. Nursultan Nazarbayev, the communist-era leader and former Communist Party chief, became the country's first president and set the country on a separate political and economic path.

A decree signed on 29 August 1991 ended four decades of Soviet nuclear testing that had exposed hundreds of thousands of people in the region to radiation. The site had hosted 456 nuclear explosions since 1949.

On 25 October 1990 the republic asserted sovereignty while remaining inside the USSR. It was the prelude to full separation the following year.

Privatisation and foreign investment, concentrated in the oil sector, made Kazakhstan Central Asia's strongest economy; by 2006 it produced around 60% of the region's GDP. Political reform lagged far behind and Nazarbayev's rule remained authoritarian.

In December 1986 mass demonstrations by young ethnic Kazakhs broke out in Almaty after Moscow replaced long-serving Kazakh party leader Dinmukhamed Konayev with Gennady Kolbin from the Russian SFSR. Government troops suppressed the unrest, killing a disputed number of protesters, with estimates ranging from several to over 100, and jailing many. The Jeltoqsan episode was one of the first major anti-Soviet unrest episodes of the Gorbachev era and a founding moment of Kazakh national assertion under glasnost.

The cosmodrome in south-central Kazakhstan was the springboard for the first human spaceflight. It also launched the Buran shuttle and the Mir station, and remains leased to Russia.

After decades of famine, war, deportation and settlement, the 1959 count showed Kazakhs at only 30% of the population against 43% ethnic Russians. The demographic imbalance shaped politics well beyond independence.

Nikita Khrushchev's Virgin Lands campaign, launched from 1953 and running through the 1950s and 1960s, converted Kazakhstan's traditional northern pasturelands into a major grain-producing region for the Soviet Union, with mixed results. Soviet citizens were encouraged to settle and cultivate the steppe, and the influx of immigrants, mostly Russians but also deported nationalities, skewed the ethnic mixture so that non-ethnic Kazakhs outnumbered natives. Together with later modernisation under Brezhnev it built the agricultural sector that still supports much of Kazakhstan's population.

The test site established in 1947 hosted the first Soviet nuclear test in 1949 and hundreds more until 1989, with severe consequences for the environment and population. The resulting anti-nuclear movement became a major political force in Kazakhstan in the late 1980s.

In September–October 1941 the Volga German population was deported to Kazakhstan, followed later by Greeks and Crimean Tatars. The republic hosted major Gulag camps, including ALZhIR outside Astana for the wives of 'enemies of the people', permanently altering its ethnic composition.

The Soviet-German War drove industrialisation and mining in Kazakhstan in support of the front. Even so, at Stalin's death in 1953 the republic's economy remained overwhelmingly agricultural.

The purges constrained scholarship and destroyed part of the Kazakh intelligentsia; the historian Sanjar Asfendiyarov was arrested and executed in 1938 and denounced in the press as a Japanese spy. Historical writing on the Golden Horde and the khans was subjected to ideological censorship.