Eurasian Steppe

The Eurasian Steppe (sometimes referred to collectively as The Steppes or The Steppe) is the term often used to describe the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia stretching from the western borders of the steppes of Hungary to the eastern border of the steppes of Mongolia, for roughly 5000 km. Most of the Euro-Asian Steppe is included within the region of Central Asia while only a small part of it is included within Eastern Europe. The term Asian Steppe usually describes the Euro-Asian Steppe without its most western parts, i.e., the steppes of western Russia, Ukraine and Hungary.

The Eurasian Steppe was the place from where nomadic horse archers, which may have included Proto-Indo-Europeans (see the Kurgan hypothesis) as well as Turkic people and the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, invaded the civilizations of China, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe.

Ecoregions

The World Wildlife Fund divides the Euro-Asian Steppe into a number of ecoregions, distinguished by elevation, climate, rainfall, and other characteristics, and home to distinct communities of plants and animals.

• Alai-Western Tian Shan steppe (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan)
• Altai steppe and semi-desert (Kazakhstan)
• Daurian forest steppe (China, Mongolia, Russia)
• Emin Valley steppe (China, Kazakhstan)
• Kazakh forest steppe (Kazakhstan, Russia)
• Kazakh steppe (Kazakhstan, Russia)
• Kazakh upland (Kazakhstan)
• Mongolian-Manchurian grassland (China, Mongolia, Russia)
• Pontic steppe (Moldova, Romania, Russia, Ukraine)
• Sayan Intermontane steppe (Russia)
• Selenge-Orkhon forest steppe (Mongolia, Russia)
• South Siberian forest steppe (Russia)
• Tian Shan foothill arid steppe (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan)

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See also

• Puszta
• Great Alföld
• Little Alföld
• Pontic steppe

Bibliography

• Plano Carpini, John of, "History of the Mongols," in Christopher Dawson, (ed.), Mission to Asia, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005, pp. 3-76.
• Barthold, W., Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, T. Minorsky, (tr.), New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1992.
• Fletcher, Joseph F., Studies on Chinese and Islamic Inner Asia, Beatrice Forbes Manz, (ed.), Aldershot, Hampshire: Variorum, 1995, IX.
• Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes: a History of Central Asia, Naomi Walford, (tr.), New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970.
• Krader, Lawrence, "Ecology of Central Asian Pastoralism," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 11, No. 4, (1955), pp. 301-326.
• Lattimore, Owen, "The Geographical Factor in Mongol History," in Owen Lattimore, (ed.), Studies in Frontier History: Collected Papers 1928-1958, London: Oxford University Press, 1962, pp. 241-258.
• Sinor, Denis, "The Inner Asian Warrior," in Denis Sinor, (Collected Studies Series), Studies in Medieval Inner Asia, Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, Variorum, 1997, XIII.
• Sinor, Denis, "Horse and Pasture in Inner Asian History," in Denis Sinor, (Collected Studies Series), Inner Asia and its Contacts with Medieval Europe, London: Variorum, 1977, II.