Liao Dynasty (Khitan Empire)

The Liao dynasty, also known as the Khitan Empire or Great Khitan State, was a Khitan-led imperial dynasty ruled by the Yelü clan that dominated the eastern steppe and northern fringe of China from 916 to 1125.

Its founder, the Yila chieftain Abaoji (posthumously Emperor Taizu), unified the Khitan tribes, became khagan in 907, and in 916 proclaimed himself Celestial Emperor with a Chinese-style era name, fusing nomadic and Sinitic models of rule. At its height the empire controlled Manchuria, the Mongolian Plateau, southern Siberia, the northern Korean Peninsula, and the northern tip of the North China Plain, becoming the first state to hold all of Manchuria. The Khitan governed their diverse subjects through an innovative dual administration: a Northern Administration ran steppe and tribal affairs by nomadic custom, while a Southern Establishment governed settled Han populations through a Tang-style civil bureaucracy. The dynasty maintained multiple capitals, devised its own Khitan scripts, and through its conquest of Balhae and pressure on the Song dynasty became the preeminent power of East Asia. So influential was the Liao that the name 'Khitai' became a root for terms designating China in many languages, including Russian (Kitai) and the archaic English 'Cathay.' The dynasty fell in 1125 when the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty captured Emperor Tianzuo, after which Khitan remnants fled west to found the Qara Khitai (Western Liao) in Central Asia.