» View our adventures to Mongolia
Human habitation in Mongolia stretches back 800,000 years, when Homo erectus lived in caves in the southwest. Modern man (Homo sapiens) arrived much later: 40,000 years ago. These early ancestors left striking cave paintings, carvings of ivory and bone, and stone tools in their cave dwellings. In the Copper and Bronze Ages, a key development of Mongolian culture came into being—horseback riding. Many local tribes turned away from farming in favor of a nomadic existence on horseback, and horses and tribal migration became hallmarks of Mongolian culture for thousands of years.
In 209 BC, an official confederation of Mongolian tribes emerged under a single head—King Modu Chanyu of the Xiongnu tribe, who ruled an empire larger than modern-day Mongolia. Subsequent dynasties continued to enlarge the empire’s holdings. Around the turn of the millennium, the Mongolian empire splintered, and it wasn’t until the rise of a chieftain named Temujin that the core of the old empire was reunited. In 1206, he took the title Genghis Khan and began a remarkable series of military campaigns across Asia and Europe. The result was the largest continuous land empire that has ever existed in human history. At its height, the Mongol Empire covered roughly 22% of the world’s landmass. Yet when the Great Khan died in 1227, he was buried in an unmarked grave—in accordance with the customs of his tribe.
The Mongol Empire gained lands and fame under Genghis’ immediate descendants. The most notable of these successors was his grandson Kublai Khan, who founded the Yuan Dynasty in China. It wasn’t until the fall of the Yuan in 1368 that the Mongol Empire collapsed back into smaller states. For the next 200-300 years, the tribes of Mongolia followed a pattern of fighting amongst themselves, uniting briefly under a strong leader, and then retuning to disunion. The constant shifts in power only ended with the conquest of Mongolia by the Chinese Qing Dynasty in the 17th century.
The Qing added new layers to the existing Mongol hierarchy: Mongol nobles still attended on the Mongol emperor, who in turn was a vassal of the Qing emperor. The Chinese also divided Mongolia into different areas of administrative control; this is where the terms “Inner Mongolia” and “Outer Mongolia” come from. When the Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1911, Mongolia turned to Imperial Russia for protection and recognition as an independent state. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, China reasserted its claim; ultimately Outer Mongolia, with Soviet backing, won its independence in 1921. A communist regime was installed in 1924, and remained in power until a peaceful democratic revolution in 1990. (Inner Mongolia remained a part of China. Today Inner Mongolia is still considered an official part of China, but not quite Chinese—like Tibet or Hong Kong.)