Kushan Empire

30–375 AD empire in Central and South Asia

The Kushan Empire (c. 1st–3rd centuries) was a state that at its height, about 105–250, stretched from Tajikistan to the Caspian Sea to Afghanistan and down into the Ganges river valley. The empire was created by the Kushan tribe of the Yuezhi, a people from modern Xinjiang, China, possibly related to the Tocharians. They had diplomatic contacts with Rome, Sassanian Persia and China, and for several centuries were at the center of exchange between the East and the West.