Tartary, a geographical designation now usually limited to Turkistan and the adjoining regions, but formerly of much wider signification, embracing a broad belt stretching across the centre of the Asiatic continent from the Japan and Okhotsk seas on the east to the Caspian on the west, and according to some geographers extending westward into Europe as far as the river Don. Tartary in its most extended sense therefore includes, in Asia, Mantchooria, Mongolia, Dzungaria, East Turkistan or High Tartary, Turkistan proper, including Khokan, Bokhara, and Khiva (formerly known as Independent Tartary), and all the southern part of the Russian possessions in Asia; and in Europe, the greater part of the Russian governments of Orenburg, Astrakhan, and Yekaterinoslav, the Don Cossack territory, and the Crimea, the last of which was formerly called Little Tartary, and also Crim Tartary, from the name of the horde which settled there in the 13th century. The name Tartary, however, is now seldom applied to any region outside of that bounded N. by Siberia, E. by Mantchooria, S. by China proper, Thibet, India, Afghanistan, and Persia, and TV. by the Caspian sea.