Uyghur people are part of a Turkic people living in northwestern China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan;
they form about 80% of the population of the Chinese province of Xinjiang Uygur.
There are about 5 million speakers of Uyghur, a language belonging to the Turkic branch of the Altaic family;
it is the official language of the province.

The Uyghur are known to have lived in the region since the 3rd century AD,
and ruled Mongolia in the 8th century.
The Uyghur Empire was destroyed by the Kirgiz in 840