[2] Its people, known in Chinese as the Kāng (康), were evidently of Indo-European origins, spoke an Eastern Iranian language, and had a semi-nomadic way of life.

[4] According to John E. Hill, a historian specialising in ancient Central Asia, "Kangju (W-G: K'ang-chü) 康居" was in or near the "Talas basin, [modern] Tashkent and Sogdiana".

Pulleyblank also suggested that the Jié (羯) tribe Qiāngqú (羌渠) might be Kangju people who had been incorporated into the Xiongnu tribal confederation.

According to 2nd century BCE Chinese sources, Kangju lay north of the Dayuan and west of the Wusun, bordering the Yuezhi in the south.

[2] Since historians of Alexander the Great do not mention the existence of any political power in the area except the Khwarezmians, the Kangju must have appeared a little later.

[2] It is likely that the state of the Kangju emerged during the great upheaval in Central Asia following the withdrawal of the Yuezhi from Gansu and then the Ili Valley after their defeat by the Xiongnu and Wusun respectively.

[13] Qian also visited a land known to the Chinese as Yancai 奄蔡 (literally "vast steppe"), which lay north-west of the Kangju.

By the time of the Hanshu (which covers the period from 206 BCE to 23 CE), Kangju had expanded considerably to a nation of some 600,000 individuals, with 120,000 men able to bear arms.

[2] The account on the 'Western Regions' in the Han dynasty Chinese chronicle, the Hou Hanshu, 88 (covering the period 25–220 and completed in the 5th century), based on a report to the Chinese emperor c. 125 CE, mentions that, at that time, Liyi 栗弋 (= Suyi 粟弋) = Sogdiana, and both the "old" Yancai (which had changed its name to Alanliao and seems here to have expanded its territory to the Caspian Sea), and Yan, a country to Yancai's north, as well as the strategic city of "Northern Wuyi" 北烏伊 (Alexandria Eschate, or modern Khujand), were all dependent on Kangju.

[2] Although their territory was small, the fertility of the land and their sophisticated civilization enabled the Kangju to maintain a large population, becoming a major military power.

The Han however intervened, defeating and killing the northern Xiongnu ruler in at Talas in 36 BCE (Battle of Zhizhi).

[2] Nevertheless, the Kangju continued to send embassies to the Han court and pursued an independent policy, which they were able to maintain until the 3rd century CE.

[2] The biography of the Chinese General Ban Chao in the Hou Hanshu says in 94 CE that the Yuezhi were arranging a marriage of their king with a Kangju princess.

The Chinese then sent "considerable presents of silks" to the Yuezhi successfully gaining their help in pressuring the Kangju to stop supporting the king of Kashgar against them.

Its ruler spent his winter in the capital city of Beitian, and his summers at his steppe headquarters, which was a seven days' journey away on horseback.

Kangju burials of the early period have been excavated at Berk-kara and Tamdî, in which the dead were placed in pit-graves, often covered with logs, under kurgan mounds.

[32] References from written sources and archaeological finds show that the Kangju reached a considerable level of agricultural sophistication.

Settlements of the Kaunchi culture were typically located in proximity to water and usually have monumental oval buildings in the center, at times with a defensive wall.

The largest settlement was a 150 hectare city known apparently as Kang (Sanskrit Kanka), south of modern Tashkent and founded in the 1st century CE.

[35] The people predominantly practiced cattle husbandry and nonirrigated agriculture (grain cultures of millet, barley, wheat, and rice, cotton, melons, and fruits).

Both the Kangju and Wusun were suggested to be descended from Western Steppe Herders (WSHs) of the Late Bronze Age who admixed with Siberian hunter-gatherers and peoples related to the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex.