Chinese Tartary ( zh, t=中國韃靼利亞, p=Zhōngguó Dádálìyà or zh, t=中属鞑靼利亚, p=Zhōng shǔ Dádálìyà) is an archaic geographical term referring to the regions of

Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

(also referred to as Chinese Turkestan), and

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

under the rule of the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

of China. The geographical extent of Chinese Tartary largely corresponds with that of the "Feudatory Regions" ( zh, c=藩部, p=fānbù), as defined by the Qing court. The term "Tartar" was used by Europeans to refer to ethnicities living in northern, northeastern, and western China, including the

Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...

, Manchus, Tibetans, and Central Asians. Some definitions include the Japanese (as indicated in violet on the map below). The regions are now more commonly referred to by scholars as Inner Asia.

History of the term

Early European writers used the term "Tartar" indiscriminately for all the peoples of Northern Eurasia and referred to their lands as "Tartary". By the 17th century, however, largely under the influence of Catholic missionary writings, the word "Tartar" came to refer to the Manchus, and the land they ruled as "Tartary", referring to

and adjacent parts of Inner Asia ruled by the Qing dynasty. The term "Chinese Tartary" was used as early as 1734 on a map created by the French geographer and cartographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (1697–1782), who published the map in the ''Nouvel atlas de la Chine, de la Tartarie Chinoise et du Thibet'' (New atlas of China, Chinese Tartary, and Tibet) in 1738. D'Anville's map was based on work ordered by the Emperor of China and conducted by the Chinese under the supervision of Jesuits. Also published in 1738 was ''A description of the empire of China and Chinese-Tartary together with the kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet'' by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde. In 1741, he went on to write ''The General History of China Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political and Physical Description of the Empire of China, Chinese-Tartary, Corea and Thibet''.

Modern areas

The areas described by this work as falling within Chinese Tartary included: *

( Chinese Turkestan) *

(

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...

and Outer Mongolia) *

(

Northeast China Northeast China () is a geographical region of China, consisting officially of three provinces Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain, the largest plain in China with an area of over . The regi ...

and Outer Manchuria) *

Qinghai Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...

In 1832, the geographical boundaries of Chinese Tartary were defined in ''A Geographical Dictionary Or Universal Gazetteer''. By 1867, the area of Chinese Tartary was described as the three vast areas covering Manchuria, Mongolia, and Ili (Xinjiang).Notes on Chinese Tartary
by Captain Sherard Osborne R.N. C.B, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London Vol. 11, No. 4 (1866–1867), pp. 162–166

References

{{Inner Asia Historical regions of China Geography of Asia

History of the term

Modern areas

See also

Further reading

References