The
Uyghur Khaganate (or
Uyghur Empire or
Uighur Khaganate or
Toquz Oghuz Country) (, Tang era names, with modern Hanyu Pinyin: or ) was a
Turkic empire that existed for about a century between the mid 8th and 9th centuries. They were a tribal confederation under the Orkhon Uyghur (回鶻) nobility, referred to by the
Chinese as the
Jiu Xing ("Nine Clans"), a calque of the name
Toquz Oghuz or Toquz Tughluq.