The eastern Kagan was the senior Kagan, with his court in Kashgar and Balasagun (Buran fortress, near Tokmak in Kyrgyzstan).
The Karakhanid appanages were associated with four principal urban centers, Balasagun (then the capital of the Karakhanid state) in Semirechye, Kashgar in Xinjiang (Kashgaria), Uzgen in Fergana, and Samarkand in Transoxiana.
The author of the Kutadgu Bilig was named Yūsuf, and was born in Balasagun, which at the time was the winter capital of the Karakhanid empire, and was located near present-day Toqmoq in Kyrgyzstan.
Among them are Hodja Ahmet Yasavi, Yunus Emre, Azadi, Zelili, Seidi, Mämmetweli Kemine, Yusuf Balasagun, Nesimi, Fizuli, Alisher Navoi, Omar Khayyám, Andalib, Mollanepes, Myatadzhi, Abdurahmanhan and Bayramhan.