Centred in the irrigated plains of the lower Amu Darya, south of the Aral Sea, with the capital in the city of Khiva.

It covered present-day western Uzbekistan, southwestern Kazakhstan and much of Turkmenistan before the Russian conquest at the second half of the 19th century.

[12] Some time around 1600,[13] the Daryaliq or west branch of the Oxus dried up causing the capital to be moved south to Khiva from Konye-Urgench.

The swampy area of the lower delta was increasingly populated by Karakalpaks and there were Kazakh nomads on the northern border.

From 1488 Muhammad Shaybani built a large but short-lived empire in southern Central Asia, taking Khwarazm in 1505.

[14] The Shah's religion provoked resistance and in 1511 his garrison was expelled and power passed to Ilbars, who founded the long-lived Arabshahid dynasty.

Following Arap Muhammad (1602–23), who moved the capital to Khiva, there was a period of disorder, including an invasion by the Kalmyks, who left laden with plunder.

Disorder was ended by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur (1643–1663) who twice defeated the Kalmyks and wrote a history of Central Asia.

After he won the battle, Shir Ghazi Khan (1715–1728) made a treaty and suggested that the Russians disperse so that they could be better fed.

The Russians installed Sayyid Muhammad Rahim Bahadur Khan II as the vassal ruler of the region.

Major Todd, the senior British political officer stationed in Herat (in Afghanistan) dispatched Captain James Abbott, disguised as an Afghan, on 24 December 1839, for Khiva.

He left on 7 March 1840, for Fort Alexandrovsk, and was subsequently betrayed by his guide, robbed, then released when the bandits realized the origin and destination of his letter.

The freed slaves and Shakespear arrived in Fort Alexandrovsk on 15 August 1840, and Russia lost its primary motive for the conquest of Khiva, for the time being.

A permanent Russian presence on the Aral Sea began in 1848 with the building of Fort Aralsk at the mouth of the Syr Darya.

The Empire's military superiority was such that Khiva and the other Central Asian principalities, Bukhara and Kokand, had no chance of repelling the Russian advance, despite years of fighting.

[20] In 1873, after Russia conquered the great cities of Tashkent and Samarkand, General Von Kaufman launched an attack on Khiva consisting of 13,000 infantry and cavalry.

The Mennonites played an important role in modernizing the Khanate in the decades prior to the October Revolution by introducing photography, resulting in the development of Uzbek photography and filmmaking, more efficient methods for cotton harvesting, electrical generators, and other technological innovations.