Treaty of Aigun

The Treaty of Aigun was an 1858 treaty between the Russian Empire and Yishan, official of the Qing dynasty of China. It established much of the modern border between the Russian Far East and China by ceding much of Manchuria (the ancestral homeland of the Manchu people), now known as Northeast China. Negotiations began after China was threatened with war on a second front by Governor-General of the Far East Nikolay Muraviev when China was suppressing the Taiping Rebellion. It reversed the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) by transferring the land between the Stanovoy Range and the Amur River from the Qing dynasty to the Russian Empire. Russia received over 600,000 square kilometers (231,660 sq mi) of what became known as Outer Manchuria. While the Qing government initially refused to recognize the validity of the treaty, the Russian gains under the Treaty of Aigun were affirmed as part of the 1860 Sino-Russian Convention of Peking.