The Uyghurs (wee-ger; 维吾尔人) are a Turkic people living mainly in Xinjiang, China. Over 11 million Uyghurs live there, more than any other part of the world. Some Uyghurs seek independence from China.
There are also many Uyghurs in Beijing, Shanghai and Taoyuan County (Hunan, South-Central China). There are Uyghur diasporic communities in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Mongolia.
Uyghurs are mainly Muslim and speak Uyghur, a Turkic language. The Uyghur alphabet is based on the Arabic alphabet.
Most Uyghurs were originally from the ancient Karluk tribes of the Kara-Khanid Khanate and immigrated to what is now Xinjiang during the 8th or 9th centuries AD. Modern Uyghurs identify with the Karakhanids even though the name Uyghur was taken from the Manichaean Uyghur Khaganate and the Buddhist state of Qocho.
At a conference in Tashkent in 1921, representatives of the New Uyghur-speaking population of West Turkestan, whose language does not go back directly to the Old Uyghur of Mongolia, or only to a small extent, adopted the name "Uyghurs" for themselves.
