Region · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Mongolia and the Steppe

On the morning of 1 January 1200 the Atlas records 13 realms and principalities in Mongolia and the Steppe, with 42 lords and officers, 37 towns, ports and sites, 10 church lands and religious houses and 25 provinces, peoples and free lands.

The realms

  1. The Naiman of Tayang and BuyiruqTai BuqaTwo khanates of one house

    The Naiman are the strongest people of the western steppe after the Kereyit, and the most lettered.

  2. The Oirat of Qutuqa BekiQutuqa BekiForest peoples under a beki

    The Oirat are the 'forest people' (hoi-yin irgen) of the Secret History: hunters, trappers, herders and smiths in the mountain forest country west of Lake Khovsgol, along the Shishged (Shikshit) and the Bii-Khem, the upper Yenisei, in what is now Tuva.

  3. The Yenisei KyrgyzPrincedom of the inals

    The Kyrgyz broke the Uyghur khaganate in 840 and burned its capital Ordu-Baliq, but did not hold Mongolia; by the eleventh century their khagan's power had faded into a union of princedoms led by inal, princes who claimed descent from the old khagans.

  4. The Kereyit of Toghrul, Ong KhanToghrulKhanate

    The Kereyit are the Church of the East people of the central steppe, Turkic or Mongol in speech (the sources disagree), who graze the Tula (Tuul) and the upper Orkhon and hold the forested valley called the Black Forest (Qara Tun) as their winter and refuge gr

  5. The Merkit of Toqto'a BekiToqto'a BekiConfederation of three tribes

    The Merkit are a forest-steppe people of the lower Orkhon and the Selenga, three divisions with three chiefs and no khan: the Uduyit under Toqto'a Beki, the Uwas (Qo'as) under Dayir Usun and the Qa'at under Qa'atai-darmala.

  6. Temujin's MongolsTemujinWar band and clans

    A following, not a state.

  7. The Tayichi'ut of TarqutaiTarqutai KiriltuqOld royal clan

    The Tayichi'ut are a lineage of the old Mongol royal house.

  8. Jamuqa's followingJamuqaFollowing of a sworn brother

    Jamuqa is Temujin's sworn brother (anda) from boyhood and his rival since the two parted camps.

  9. The other Mongol clansMongol-speaking clans

    A small residual class.

  10. The TatarsTribal confederation

    The Tatars are the old frontier confederation of the east: many tribes, no single ruler, living on the pastures round Buir Nur and Hulun Nur and along the Khalkha river, with a trade road to the Jin.

  11. The OnggiratDei SechenTribe in a Jin quarrel

    The Onggirat are the great marriage partners of the steppe.

  12. The Ongud, wardens of the Jin marchAlaqush Digit QuriNestorian Turks under the Jin

    The Ongud are Turkic, Church of the East, descended from the Shatuo Turks; Chinese texts call them White Tatars.

  13. Self-governing peoples of Mongolia and the SteppeNone named for 1199-1200 in the sources readSelf-governing peoples

    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.

Primary sources for Mongolia and the Steppe

  • Brief Account of the Black Tatars, Peng Daya (彭大雅) with notes by Xu Ting (徐霆) (1237 (Peng Daya's text from a 1232 to 1233 embassy, Xu Ting's notes from a 1235 to 1236 embassy)). Two Song envoys' notes on the Mongols under Ogodei: the steppe, climate, herds, hunting, the ruler's tent and court, the army, taxes, trade, the postal relay, the Uyghur and Khitan clerks, and the subject peoples.
  • Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter.
  • Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang.
  • Full Record of the Mongol Tatars, Zhao Gong (趙珙), formerly attributed to Meng Gong (孟珙) (1221). The earliest outside description of the Mongols, by a Song envoy sent to the Mongol commander Muqali at Yanjing (Beijing) in 1221.
  • History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203.
  • Journey to the West of the Perfected Changchun (Qiu Chuji), Li Zhichang (李志常) (about 1228, from the journey of 1220 to 1224). A dated eyewitness itinerary across the steppe and the Tarim twenty years after 1200: the Kereyit country and the Ongud frontier, the Naiman mountains, the Uyghur towns of Beshbaliq and the Tarim with their Buddhist and Christian communities, Almaliq of the Qarluq, and Samarkand.
  • Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din).
  • The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory.
  • History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200.
  • The History of the World Conqueror, Ata-Malik Juvayni (1252 to 1260). Written for the Mongols but with a long retrospective on the powers they destroyed.
  • Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources.
  • Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese.
  • History of the World Conqueror: the Qara Khitai (Gur Khans) and the Uyghurs of Beshbaliq, Ala al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni (begun about 1252 to 1253, ends with 1260). Juvayni's chapters on the Uyghur kingdom (its origin legend, Beshbaliq and Qocho, and the idiqut Barchuq's murder of the Qara Khitai resident before his submission to Chinggis Khan in 1209) and on the Gur Khans of the Qara Khitai are the fullest Muslim account of the Tarim and Zhetysu around 1200: the gurkhan Zhilugu's court at Balasagun, his tax collectors in the oasis towns and in Samarkand, his relations with the Khwarazmshah Tekish and then Muhammad, and the arrival of the Naiman prince Kuchlug in 1208.

The whole sources library

How these entries are made

Every entry describes one morning, 1 January 1200, and keeps later events in a dated "what the year holds" list with the conditions each depended on. Each entry names its sources, rates its confidence and says where the sources disagree. Published 4 November 2026. Corrections are welcome.