Khitan emperors ruled northern China as Great Liao until 1125
Abaoji proclaimed a Chinese-style Khitan dynasty in 916; successors renamed it Great Liao as non-Khitan subjects multiplied. Jurchen Jin forces captured Emperor Tianzuo in 1125, yet Yelü Dashi's Western Liao—Qara Khitai—carried the name into Central Asia for nearly a century.
Eighth- and ninth-century Khitan consolidation set the stage; Yila chieftain Abaoji, Emperor Taizu, founded the Great Khitan State in 907 and dynastic forms in 916. Taizong's rename to Great Liao around 938 or 947 advertised imperial breadth. Khitan script even swapped word order depending on whether Khitan or Liao took precedence in a title.
The ruling family's two surnames hint at a layered identity. Yila, probably the older, meant stallion and carried overtones of messenger or warrior; Yelü was taken up later, perhaps in the 930s. The Khitans themselves are usually traced to the Yuwen branch of the Xianbei, which broke apart after a defeat in 345. The earliest mention of a Khitan state comes in the Book of Wei, finished in 554, by which time they held land in what are now Jilin and Liaoning. Eight tribes once shared power, rotating the leadership every three years.
In the early 7th century the Dahe clan bound those tribes into a loose federation that handled only foreign affairs. It submitted to the Tang in 628 and again in 648, when its leader Kuge was made Governor-general of Songmo and the clan received the imperial surname Li. As Tang control of the north slipped around the turn of the century, the chieftain Sun Wanrong and his brother-in-law Li Jinzhong grew angry at Zhao Wenhui, governor of Yingzhou, who treated them as his servants. The Khitan name outlived all of this: because Liao and later Qara Khitai power loomed so large, Khitai became the word for China across Central Asia and Russia.
Source: Liao dynasty
