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Asian Countries That DISAPPEARED (& Why)
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May 18, 2025
Go to our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/generalknowledge for 10% off your first month of therapy with BetterHelp and get matched with a therapist who will listen and help. ▶ In this video I talk about countries that used to exist in Medieval Asia. Exploring the political landscape of the continent in the year 1200 AD, highlighting the changes in borders, countries that existed then (being either annexed, destroyed, or fading away) but not today, and those that remain (plus how they evolved over time). Going into specific regions and states, including the Khmer Empire, the Ainu people, the Ghurid Sultanate, the Khwarezm Sultanate, the Champa City States, the Dali Kingdom, Mosul, and the Uyghur Khanates. The Khmer Empire was a Hindu-Buddhist empire with an innovative healthcare system but faced decline due to environmental factors. The Ainu people inhabited Northern Japan until they were assimilated into Japanese society. The Uchima Kingdom's historical existence is unclear. The Ghurid Sultanate and Khwarezm Sultanate were once powerful but eventually collapsed, with the Khwarezmian Sultanate facing a devastating Mongol invasion. The Champa City States in Vietnam had a long history of sovereignty. The Dali Kingdom in China traded horses with the Southern Song Dynasty. Mosul's sovereignty in 1200 AD is questionable due to its history of changing rulers. The Uyghur Khanates in North-West and North China varied in structure and eventually fell to Mongol and Qing rule. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro 00:40 Map Overview 04:20 Khmer Empire (Cambodia, Thailand) 05:30 Ainu (Hokkaido / North Japan) 06:25 Uchima Kingdom (Okinawa) 07:23 Ghurid Sultanate (Northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan) 08:20 Khwarezm Sultanate (Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia) 09:21 Champa City States (South Vietnam) 10:11 Dali Kingdom (South-East China) 11:07 Mosul (Iraq) 12:13 Uyghur Khanates 13:06 Summary ▶ Support me on Patreon & get exclusive / ahead of time content! https://www.patreon.com/generalknowledge
View Video Transcript
0:00
It's always fun to look at old maps and when I look at these old maps I usually try to notice two things
0:06
One, which countries existed back then that don't anymore. And two, what was the old form, borders or names of countries that do exist today as they did then but have changed
0:27
So that's what we are going to do today. looking at a map of the continent of Asia
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depicting not what the political borders are today, but what they roughly were around 800 years ago, in the year of 1200 AD
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First, an overview of the continent as a whole. As we can see, back then, Asia didn't really look anything like it does today
0:47
The Byzantines still held much of Anatolia, the Seljuks holding the rest
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along with several microstates, Georgia's territory was much bigger, and Azerbaijan existed further south than it does today
0:58
Armenia wasn't around, existing instead to the southwest in Cilicia. The Middle East was somewhat disorganized too
1:05
The Ayyubit Sultanate controlled Egypt and stretched around the still existing Crusader states
1:11
The Abbasids were around too. Mosul was its own state, according to this
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And the Arab Peninsula was a mix of tribes with no real state organization
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apart from Oman and Yemen in the south. In modern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India
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two very large sultanates existed and divided these lands among each other, the Khuatazm and the Gurit
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while the rest of India was split up too, with special attention to Kashmir, which according to this was its own state
1:40
In Russia, which I guess we must also include within Asia, the Rus principalities were still separated in the west
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with Kiev and Novgorod still being the biggest at the time. Volga Bulgaria still existed along the Volga River
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and several other Kanats held vast steppes of land throughout Central Asia and Siberia
1:58
In China, the Uyghur Kanats were independent too, as were many Tibetan kingdoms and tribes
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perhaps proving the cultural difference of these regions and the potential justification for them
2:08
to still be sovereign states today. The rest of China was also still divided into the Shishia
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the Dali Kingdom, the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yurken or Jin Dynasty in the north
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which stretched into North Korea and Manchuria, while most of the Korean peninsula was already
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united into the kingdom of Goryeo. Japan, however, was not fully unified as it is today
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the north was still ruled directly by the Ainu people and the Uchima Kingdom still existed in
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these southern islands. Taiwan was also ruled directly by its natives, as was the case with
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the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. In the rest of Southeast Asia, the continental side
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Bagan existed in modern day Myanmar, as did Dai Viet, the Champa city states, and most
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important of all, the Khmer Empire. So now that we did this, and because it would be impossible to get into the detailed history
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of all of them, let's choose a few examples to look further into
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We will look at the following states. The Khmer Empire, the Ainu people, An Uchida kingdom, the Guriq Sultanate and Khwarezm
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Sultanate, the Champa city states, the Dali kingdom, Mosul, and the Uyghur Kanads
3:13
Let's jump into them. Dealing with the disappearance of some historical country isn't hard
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Now, back to the video. The Khmer Empire was a Hindu-Buddhist empire in Southeast Asia
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It existed from 802 to 1431, and its capital was Angkor, the most extensive pre-industrial urban complex in the world
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It was essentially what you could call an hydraulic empire, a government structure which maintained power through their exclusive control over access to water
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it came from the need for flood control and irrigation. Historians have also concluded that
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the Khmer Empire invented the world's first healthcare system which included over 100 hospitals
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This was the cause of their demise, the water, as researchers have also determined that a period
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of strong monsoon rains was followed by severe drought in the region which caused damage to the
5:03
empire's hydraulic infrastructure. This may have caused residents to migrate south and away from
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the Empire's major cities, causing them to fall to foreign invaders. Angkor is perhaps
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the Empire's most notable legacy as it was the capital during its zenith, the majestic
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monument of Angkor Wat remains until today. The Empire referred to itself as Kambuja
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which we obviously connect to the modern Cambodia, especially since it's where the Empire
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originates from. Next we have the Ainu people in northern Japan. These people were and are native to the land
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surrounding the sea of Okhotsk, including the islands of Hokkaido, Onchun, Sakhalin and Kuril
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Before Russian expansion into the Far East and before Japan had a fully functioning and
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organized state that permitted expansion into those regions, they ruled their homelands freely
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Their biggest territory was the island of Hokkaido and only in the 18th century that the Japanese
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fully colonized them and forced them to assimilate under penalty of death, also forcibly removing
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some of them from their land during the period of the Meiji Restoration
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In 1966, there were about 300 native Ainu speakers, by 2008 that number was only at 100
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Today estimates place the total Ainu population of Japan between 25 and 200,000
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The near total assimilation of them into the Japanese society has resulted in many people
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of Ainu descent having no knowledge of their ancestry. In the same way that Japan hadn't stretched their rule that far north by this time in
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history, the same happened with some small southern islands, namely those of the Uchima
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Kingdom, existing in the island of Okinawa, according to this. But here I ran into somewhat of an issue
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Here's the thing, the map labels the islands as being the Uchima Kingdom, but when I search
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for this term, I get results for Ryukyu. Ryukyu was established only in 1429 as the tributary state of Ming China and upon their establishment Okinawa was unified ending the Sanzan period when three different rulers controlled parts of the island the kingdoms of Nanzan Chuzan
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and Okuzan. But each of these was only established in 1314 too and there's no information as to who
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ruled the island before this, only that it was a period known as Guzuku, essentially
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referring to the ancient natives of the island. So, if anyone knows what this mysterious Uchima kingdom is, let me know in the comments, otherwise
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Otherwise it might just be a mistake from the map maker. Moving to the two large sultanates starting with the Gurid, a dynasty of presumably Iranian
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and Tajik origins which ruled from the 8th century to 1215, so while this map of 1200
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depicts their territory as large, it was nearing its collapse. The Gurids were centered in the hills of present day Afghanistan, where they initially started
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out as local chiefs. They gradually converted to Sunni Islam and expanded into the surrounding areas following
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successful military campaigns. deaths and military defeats against other local powers eventually led to their defeat and collapse
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namely also due to the fact that for a long time, despite their large territory, they existed as
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vassal states of other stronger powers to the west, such as the Selugues. By 1215 they didn't
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exist anymore, but some say their local rulers in northern India remained in control of some land
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which would then evolve into the Delhi Sultanate, which got to rule almost all of India
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somewhere between the 13th and 16th centuries. And then the other big one, the Khwarezm Sultanate
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also a Sunni Muslim state but of Turkic, Mamluk origin. They ruled large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran between 1077 and 1231
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first also as vassals of the Seljuk Empire and the Karikittai of China
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From 1190 onwards, they were independent though, and eventually became the most powerful and aggressively expansionist empire in the Persian
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lands, defeating the Seljuk and the Gurid empire, even threatening the opposites. In the beginning
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of the 13th century, the empire is thought to have become the greatest power in the Muslim world
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In 1231, they also collapsed, mostly due to the Mongol invasions which, under the command of
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Genghis Khan, conquered their entire 2-3 million square kilometer empire in just under two years
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In fact, the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Sultanate is up to today one of the bloodiest wars in history
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with between 10 to 15 million people dying on the side of the Khwarazmian
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Moving back to Southeast Asia, we have the Champa city-states, remaining independent from the Khmer Empire and existing on the coast of what is now Vietnam
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The first Champa-lites were established in around the year 192, and the latest existed until 1832
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so a tremendously long period of existence. They were first established as a rebellion against the Chinese rule of the Han Dynasty in this region
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and ended only when the Principality of Panduranga was conquered by Vietnam
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Throughout their long existence, the city-states or principalities seem to have had a great degree of sovereignty on their own
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even in foreign affairs, but a king did exist, holding titles of being a patron of arts and construction
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The Chams or Champa people are still a relevant group in Vietnam and Cambodia today
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these are the descendants of the inhabitants of these medieval principalities. And further north is the Dali Kingdom
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Situated in the modern Yunnan province of China, existing from 937 to 1253
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the Dali Kingdom takes its name from the Dali City famed for its high marble Dali which literally means marble in Chinese They had close relationships with their Chinese neighbors the Southern Song
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and even offered them tribute, usually of horses in exchange for peace. There is even a transcript
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of some writings of the time, describing the quality of their horses from the perspective of
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the Song. These horses possess a shape that is quite magnificent. They stand low with a muscular
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front very similar to the shape of a chicken. In 1253, it was conquered by the Mongols but
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members of its former ruling dynasty continued to administer the area as local chiefs being
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vassals of the Mongol Yuan dynasty until the Ming conquest in 1382. Today, the former capital
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of the Dali kingdom is still called Dali in the modern Yunnan province of China
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Moving west to the Middle East, we also had Mosul. Now, Mosul is an interesting case because
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Their period of sovereignty signaled on this map also seems to not really exist
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Throughout history, Mosul has been a key city and location for many empires, dynasties, and caliphates
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and while the ancient era to the early middle ages period is definitely the golden age of Mosul
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it's hard to find a time when it was fully independent, as signaled on the map
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In 1893, they were controlled by the Abbasids. In the 10th century, they became under the control of the native Hamdani dynasty
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which then expanded their control over Upper Mesopotamia for several decades. Perhaps this is what the author of the map signals, but that wasn't in 1200
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In fact, Mosul was then conquered by the Seljuk Empire in the 11th century
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The only period that I found as a potential time of independence was from 1109 to 1113
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when Modud, a military leader, ruled Mosul independently, but this also does match the 1200 date
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It changed hands between Arab and Muslim dynasties until being taken over by the Mongol Ilkhanat
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And finally for this video, the Uyghur Khanats. Taking up a good amount of territory in northwest and north China
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they existed from as early as the 6th century and lasted until the Mongol invasions
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Some of them were full on empires with more centralized government systems, while others were just loose tribal confederations
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and some were just separate tribes that existed as individual sovereign entities
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just sharing a Turkic culture among them. Many times, after a certain Khaganat collapse
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the tribes dispersed and then moved on to form other smaller kingdoms among them
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I believe the one referred to in this map is the Karakhanit Kanat, which existed between the 9th
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and 13th century, being independent, but also a Seljuk and Karakitai vassal at times. Eventually
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the Karakitai themselves invaded and conquered them, with following conquests taking place by
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the Mongols who ruled the region until the conquest by Qing China in the 17th century
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So, those are some of the countries that used to exist in medieval Asia, specifically in
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the year 1200 AD. Understanding how some countries or states, or just peoples, existed and had sovereignty
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back then, having disappeared throughout time, either due to conquest, absorption or assimilation
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into another culture, or just moving away. And how some that did exist back then, still exist today, having evolved and changed into
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the modern versions of their countries. Do you know of any other time periods in Asia or other
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continents where the political borders were different than today? Let me know in the comments
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along with your opinions and thoughts about this video. Thanks so much for watching
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subscribe if you want, and I will see you next time for more general knowledge
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