Round the great steppe peoples of this map lie the forest, the mountain and the desert, and the peoples who live there answer to no khan on 1 January 1200.
They are drawn in one pale colour, each with its own range outlined in its own record. In the north and the north-west they are the hunters and herders of the Altai foothills and the Biya, the Telengit of the high Altai, the Tubas and the Uriangkhai of Tuva, the Sayan hunters and the Kimek remnants of the upper Irtysh. Round Lake Baikal and the Selenga they are the Khori-Tumed, the Tumat, the Bargut and the forefathers of the Buryats, with the Darkhad forest peoples of Lake Khovsgol.
In the east they are the Uriangkhai of the Khentii forest, the Shiwei hunters of the Great Khingan and the Evenk of the Shilka. In the south the herders of the Gobi answer to the Naiman, the Ongud or the roads to the Tangut and the Jin as it suits them. Some of these peoples pay tribute or give hunters and furs to a neighbouring khan; none is ruled by one.
Who rules
- Name
- None named for 1199-1200 in the sources read
- Title
- No khan: each people follows its own headmen, elders and shamans
- Confidence
- low
What the realm holds
- The forest and the foothills of the Altai, the Biya and the Kuznetsk taiga
- Tuva and the Sayans (the Tubas, the Uriangkhai and the Sayan hunters)
- The country of Lake Baikal, the Selenga and the Khilok (the Khori-Tumed, the Tumat, the Bargut and the ancestors of the Buryats)
- The Darkhad depression and Lake Khovsgol
- The Khentii forest of the Uriangkhai, the Great Khingan and the Shilka taiga
- The Gobi herders
The realm that morning
No war, revolt or raid is recorded for these peoples in the winter of 1199-1200.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: No chief, headman or elder of these peoples is named for 1 January 1200 in anything the researchers could read. The Chinese and Mongol sources lump the forest and mountain peoples together; the modern names (Buryat, Soyot, Tuvan, Evenk) are later usage for peoples whose names in 1200 are not settled.
On the map: One colour for many peoples that answer to no prince. The outlines are the researchers' rough ranges of mobile peoples and the modern soums and districts of the uplands; the forest ground runs on beyond this map into Siberia.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.