After the Russian conquest and the division of Central Asia between Russia, China, Iran, and Afghanistan, the areas inhabited by individual Turkmen tribes of Central Asia became generally stable. The map shows the regions inhabited by the Turkmen tribes according to early 20th century surveys and mid-20th century ethnographic data. Turkmens of all tribes preserved a strong sense of their separate tribal identities, which was expressed not
only in various elements of material culture (especially female dress and the ornaments of their famous tribal rugs and other textile products), but also in tribal dialects, which were specific to each major tribe. At the same time the Turkmens were well aware that they had a common origin and belonged to the same people, notwithstanding their tribal differences. Until at least the middle of the 20th century, written tribal genealogies (or genealogical trees, sheered) could be found among the various Turkmen tribes of Central Asia tracing their origin back to the mythical Oghuz Khan and sometimes showing the kinship among the tribes. By the early 20th century the Tekke was by far the largest tribe, forming about 30% of the entire Turkmen population. Next were the Youth (about 21%) and then the Ersarï (about 16%). More than a dozen other tribes together formed just 33% of all the Turkmens.
Several small tribes were settled in the middle course of the Amu-Darya, in the region of Chary and farther south, often interspersed with Uzbeks and Tajiks, and some of them were partially assimilated by the Uzbeks. In the foothills of the Kopet-Dagh there existed several small tribes (Noakhali, Murali, Annuli) who had no place in Turkmen genealogies; some modern linguists define their dialects as “Khorasan Ian Turkic,” and a hypothesis has been advanced according to which these tribes are the remnants of the Turkmen groups that came to Khorasan with the beginning of the Seljuk movement, the majority of whom migrated later to Azerbaijan and Anatolia.