en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khwarazm
2 corrections found
Capital Khiva
Khiva is an anachronistic capital for this page’s ancient/medieval date range. Khiva only became the capital of Khorezm in the early 17th century; earlier capitals were Kath and then Gurganj.
Full reasoning
Listing Khiva as the capital here is historically inaccurate for the page’s own time span.
Encyclopaedia Iranica states that Khiva did not have much political or economic importance until the early 17th century and that it became the capital during the reign of ʿArab Moḥammad Khan I (1603–22). For the earlier medieval period, Encyclopaedia Iranica’s article on the Maʾmunids describes Kāt/Kath as the capital of the Afrighids and explains the later rise of Gorgānj (Gurganj), which then took over the whole kingdom.
So Khiva was not the capital of ancient or medieval Khwarazm, and it especially cannot serve as the capital of a polity whose infobox says it ended in 1324.
2 sources
- KHIVA - Encyclopaedia Iranica
“Khiva did not have much political or economic importance until the early 17th century… during the reign of ʿArab Moḥammad Khan I (1603-22), it became the capital of the country.”
- ĀL-E MAʾMŪN - Encyclopaedia Iranica
The article describes “the capital of the Afrighids, Kāt or Kāṯ” and the later rise of Gorgānǰ, which “finally… took over the whole kingdom of Ḵᵛārazm.”
Also, in 1936 the northwestern part became the Kazakh SSR.
This Soviet-administrative claim is wrong. The northwestern Khwarezm/Karakalpak area was transferred in 1936 to the Uzbek SSR, not to the Kazakh SSR.
Full reasoning
This sentence misstates the 1936 Soviet reorganization of the northwestern Khwarezm/Karakalpak area.
Britannica’s entry on Karakalpakstan says the area was created as an autonomous oblast within the Kazakh ASSR in 1925, then moved under the Russian SFSR in 1930, and in 1936 it was made part of the Uzbek SSR while retaining autonomous status. Britannica’s article on Uzbekistan says the same thing: Karakalpakstan was transferred to the Uzbek S.S.R. in 1936.
So the article’s statement that this area “became the Kazakh SSR” in 1936 reverses the actual direction of the transfer.
2 sources
- Karakalpakstan | Uzbekistan, Map, & Facts | Britannica
“Established as an autonomous oblast ... of the Kazakh ASSR in 1925 ... In 1936, while retaining its status, it was made a part of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.”
- Uzbekistan - Soviet, Russian, Rule | Britannica
“Karakalpakstan was transferred to the Uzbek S.S.R. in 1936, though it retained autonomous status.”