In the early part of its history, the inhabitants of the area came from Iranian stock and spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Khwarezmian. Turks replaced the Iranian ruling-class in the 10th century A.D., and the region gradually turned into an area with a majority of Turkic speakers.

Russia annexed Khiva Khanate in the 19th century. The last Khan from the ruling dynasty was liquidated a century later, in 1919. Thus Khiva became the capital city of the new Soviet People's Republic of Khorezm. Khorezm oasis was converted into a part of modern Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in 1924.[1]

The earliest records of the city of Khiva appear in Muslim travel accounts from the 10th century[citation needed], although archaeological evidence indicates habitation in the 6th century.[2] By the early 17th century, Khiva had become the capital of the Khanate of Khiva, ruled by a branch of the Astrakhans, a Genghisid dynasty.

 

2014 Image of Palvan Gate Of Khiva, built early 19th Century, known to have hosted large slave market and a center of punishments and executions

In the 17th century Khiva began to develop as a slave market. During the first half of the 19th century, around 30000 Persians and an unknown number of Russians, were enslaved there before being sold. A large part of them were involved in the construction of buildings in the walled Ichan-Kala.[2]

In the course of the Russian conquest of Central Asia, in 1873 the Russian General Konstantin von Kaufman launched an attack on the city of Khiva, which fell on 28 May 1873. Although the Russian Empire now controlled the Khanate, it allowed Khiva to remain as a nominally quasi-independent protectorate.

Following the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917, a short-lived (1920-1925) Khorezm People's Soviet Republic formed out of the territory of the old Khanate of Khiva before its incorporation into the USSR in 1925. The city of Khiva became part of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.