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The present distribution of Turkic languages bears witness to the Early Medieval westward expansion of Turkic tribes.

Map from Mahmud al-Kashgari's Diwanu Lughat at-Turk, showing the 11th century distribution of Turkic tribes.

The Turkic migration (or expansion) is the spreading of the Turkic peoples across most of Central Asia into Europe and the Middle East between the 6th and 11th centuries (the Early Middle Ages).

By the 10th century, most of Central Asia, formerly dominated by Iranian peoples, was settled by Turkic tribes. The Seljuk Turks from the 11th century invaded Anatolia, ultimately resulting in permanent Turkic settlement there and the establishment of Turkey.

The population ancestral to the Turks is thought to be the Xiong Nu of Mongolia or along the upper Yenisei in Siberia (the area of the contemporary Tuvan language), known from historical sources of ca. 200 BC (Holster, 1993). Around 50 BC, the Han Chinese forced the Xiong Nu from their homeland, resulting in the Hunnic migrations. The first reference to "Turks" (Tujue) appears in Chinese sources of the 6th century. The earliest evidence of Turkic languages as a separate group comes from the Orkhon inscriptions of the early 8th century.

The precise date of the initial expansion from the early homeland remains unknown. The first state known as "Turk", giving its name to the many states and peoples afterwards, was that of the Göktürks (gök = "blue" or "celestial") in the 6th century. The head of the Ashina clan led his people from Li-jien (modern Zhelai Zhai) to the Rouran seeking inclusion in their confederacy and protection from China. His tribe comprised famed metal smiths and was granted land near a mountain quarry that looked like a helmet, from which they got their name 突厥. A century later their power had increased such that they conquered the Rouruan and set about establishing their Gok Empire.

Later Turkic peoples include the Karluks (mainly 8th century), Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, Oghuz (or Guz, Uz, Ghuzz, e.t.c.) Turks, and Turkmens. As these peoples were founding states in the area between Mongolia and Transoxiana, they came into contact with Muslims, and most gradually adopted Islam. However, there were also (and still are) small groups of Turkic people belonging to other religions, including Christians, Jews (see Khazars), Buddhists, and Zoroastrians.

Turkic soldiers in the army of the Abbasid caliphs emerged as the de facto rulers of much of the Muslim Middle East (apart from Syria and North Africa) from the 13th century. The Oghuz and other tribes captured and dominated various countries under the leadership of the Seljuk dynasty, and eventually captured the territories of the Abbasid dynasty and the Byzantine Empire.

Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz and Uyghurs were struggling with one another and with the Chinese Empire. The Kyrgyz people ultimately settled in the region now referred to as Kyrgyzstan. The Tatar peoples conquered the Volga Bulgars in what is today Tatarstan, following the westward sweep of the Mongols under Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Other Bulgars settled in Europe in the 7-8th centuries, but were assimilated by the Slavs, giving the name to the Bulgarians and the Slavic Bulgarian language.

• Findley, Carter Vaughnm, The Turks in World History, Oxford University Press: Oxford (2005).
• Holster, Charles Warren, The Turks of Central Asia Praeger: Westport, CT (1993).

• History of Central Asia
• Migration Period
• Huns
• Eurasian Avars
• Petchenegs
• Cumans
• Mongol Empire
• Tatar invasions
• Seljuk Empire
• Ottoman Empire
• Rouran
• Uyghur Empire
• Byzantine-Seljuk Wars
• Byzantine-Ottoman wars

• Xiongnu
• Hephthalites
• Oghuz

• The Turkic Expansion
• Great Steppe Empires of Asia