The Kara-Khitan Khanate (1124 or 1125-1218) was established by Yel� Dashi (耶律大石) who led around 100,000 Khitan remnants after escaping Jurchen conquest of their native country, the Khitan dynasty.

This regime survived until the arrival of Genghis Khan's Mongolian cavalries and was referred to in Chinese sources as Kara-Kitai, Kara-Khitai, Kara-Khitay, Kara-Khitan, Western Liao, Xi Liao or similar variants. The Kitai or Khitai suffixes were quoted from Russian sources.

Its capital, Balasagun (in today's Kyrgyzstan) flourished to a cultural and economic centre.

The Islamized Qarluk princely clan, the Balasaghunlu Ashinalar (the Karakhanids) gravitated toward the Persian Islamic cultural zone after their political autonomy and suzereignty over Central Asia was secured during the 9-10th century.

As they became increasingly Persianized (to the point of adopting "Afrasiab", a Shahnameh mythical figure as the ancestor of their lineage), they settled in the more Indo-Iranian sedentary centers such as Qashgari, and became detached from the nomadic traditions of fellow Qarluqs, many of whom retained the Nestorian-Mahayana-Manichaean religious mixture of the former Uyghur Khanate.

When the Khitays came, along with Nestorian Naiman recruits, they solicited support among Qarluks from Semirechye to the Irtysh region.

Though largely Mahayana and Confucian in organizing principles, the nucleus of Khitay elites were wise to adopt elements of Nestorian identity, as reflected in the Christian names of the Kara-Khitay Gur-Khans.

The Khitay conquest of Central Asia, can thus be seen as internecine struggle within the Qarluk nomadic tribe, only played out as dynastic conflict between the conquering Khitay elites and the defending Kara-Khanid princes, resulting in the subjugation of the latter by the former, and in the subjugation of the Muslim Qarluks by their Nestorian kins and the Nestorian Naimans.

 Kangguo (康國 Kānggu�) 1134-1144
 

See also: Kara-Khanid Khanate