Kangju
Kangju | |
|---|---|
| 1st century BCE (?)–5th century CE | |
The approximate territory of the Kangju c. 200 CE. | |
| Status | Independent state |
| Capital | Kangu |
| Common languages | Sogdian language |
| Historical era | Late Antiquity |
• Established | 1st century BCE (?) |
• Disestablished | 5th century CE |
| Today part of | Uzbekistan Tajikistan |
Kangju (Chinese: 康居; pinyin: kāngjū; Wade–Giles: K'ang-chü; Eastern Han Chinese: kʰɑŋ-kɨɑ < *khâŋ-ka (c. 140 BCE)) was the Chinese name of a kingdom in Central Asia during the first half of the first millennium CE. The name Kangju is now generally regarded as a variant or mutated form of the name Sogdiana. According to contemporaneous Chinese sources, Kangju was the second most powerful state in Transoxiana, after the Yuezhi. Its people, known in Chinese as the Kāng (康), were evidently of Indo-European origins, spoke an Eastern Iranian language, and had a semi-nomadic way of life. The Sogdians may have been the same people as those of Kangju and closely related to the Sakas, or other Iranian groups such as the Asii.