Khitan people
nomadic people originally from Mongolia and Manchuria
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The Khitan were a nomadic people from Mongolia and Manchuria who built a powerful empire in East Asia during the medieval period. They matter historically because they significantly influenced the development of the region and its neighboring civilizations before eventually being absorbed into other populations.
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Article
The Khitan people (Khitan small script: ; Chinese: 契丹; pinyin: Qìdān) were a historical nomadic people from East Asia and parts of North Asia who, from the 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia, Northeast China and the Russian Far East.
As a people descended from the proto-Mongols through the Xianbei, Khitans spoke the now-extinct Khitan language, a Para-Mongolic language related to the Mongolic languages. The Khitan people founded and led the Liao dynasty (916–1125), which dominated a vast area of Siberia, Mongolia and Northern China. The Khitans of the Liao dynasty used two independent writing systems for their language: Khitan small script and Khitan large script.