A Turkestan province or khanate in Central Asia, S. of the Sea of Aral; is under Russian protection since 1873; a sandy desert with many oases, and in some parts well irrigated from the Oxus; it produces wheat, rice, cotton, and fruit; climate subject to extremes. Khiva, the capital, on a canal connected with the Amu, some distance from the left bank of the Oxus, and 300 m. NW. of Merv, is a town of earth huts; it was at one time one of the chief slave-markets in Asia till the traffic was put a stop to by Russia.