Mongols

The Mongols are a Mongolic-speaking ethnic group native to Mongolia and parts of northern China and Russia. Traditionally, they were a nomadic, pastoral people organized into clans and tribes, with a culture centered on horse-based mobility, steppe diplomacy, and seasonal migrations. Their languages belong to the Mongolic language family.

In the late 12th and early 13th centuries, Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and founded the Mongol Empire in 1206. Under his leadership and that of his successors, the Mongols launched a series of rapid military campaigns that created the largest continuous land empire in world history, stretching from Eastern Europe to the Korean Peninsula and the Persian Gulf.

At its height, the empire encompassed several semi-independent khanates. After 1260, four main divisions emerged: the Golden Horde in the western steppes (Russia and eastern Europe), the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the Ilkhanate in Iran and Mesopotamia, and the Yuan Dynasty in China established by Kublai Khan. The empire facilitated long-distance trade across Eurasia, enhancing exchange along the Silk Road and transmitting technologies, ideas, and cultures between East and West.

Religiously, the Mongols were diverse and generally tolerant, adopting Tengriism in earlier times while incorporating Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity in various regions. They employed a legal code known as the Yassa, valued merit alongside kinship, and relied on highly mobile cavalry and innovative military tactics.

By the 14th century, internal strife, succession conflicts, and plague contributed to the fragmentation of the empire. Nevertheless, the Mongol era left a lasting impact on regional governance, trade networks, and cultural contact, with modern Mongolians tracing descent to historic Mongolic peoples and maintaining a distinct national identity in the contemporary state of Mongolia.