Astrakhan Khanate

The Khanate of Astrakhan, also referred to as the Xacitarxan Khanate, was a Tatar state that arose during the break-up of the Golden Horde. The Khanate existed in the 15th and 16th centuries in the area adjacent to the mouth of the Volga river, around the modern city of Astrakhan. Its khans claimed patrilineal descent from Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan.

Mahmud bin Küchük established the Khanate in the 1460s. The capital was the city of Xacitarxan, also known as Astrakhan in Russian chronicles. Its territory included the Lower Volga valley and the Volga Delta, including most of what is now Astrakhan Oblast and the steppeland on the right bank of Volga in present-day Kalmykia. To the south was the Caspian sea, to the east the Nogai Horde, and to the west Nogais who were theoretically subjects of the Crimean Khanate.