Khanate of Kokand

The Khanate of Kokand was an early modern state centered in the fertile Fergana Valley of Central Asia, existing from 1709 to 1876, at its peak stretching from the Ulu Tau mountains in the north to Sariqol in the south and from Aq Masjid in the west to Karakol in the east, territory today divided among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. Kokand grew prosperous from irrigated agriculture in the Fergana Valley and from its position on Central Asian trade routes linking China, Russia and the other Central Asian khanates, and it expanded aggressively under rulers such as Alim Khan and Muhammad Ali Khan in the early nineteenth century, at times contesting territory with the neighboring Emirate of Bukhara. The khanate's independence steadily eroded under pressure from the expanding Russian Empire through the mid-nineteenth century, and after a series of military defeats Russia formally annexed Kokand's territory in 1876, incorporating it into Russian Turkestan.