The Four Khanates of the Mongol Empire

By the late 13th century the empire Genghis Khan had built had ceased to function as a single state. The vast territory conquered in the first half of the 13th century was divided into four major successor states, each ruled by a descendant of Genghis Khan and each pursuing its own political, military, and cultural trajectory. These four khanates — the Yuan Dynasty in the east, the Ilkhanate in the southwest, the Golden Horde in the northwest, and the Chagatai Khanate in the centre — would dominate the political landscape of Eurasia for the next century and would shape the modern world in ways that are still visible.

The fragmentation of the empire into four khanates was not a sudden event but a gradual process that unfolded over several decades. The process was driven by a combination of geographical distance, political interest, and cultural difference. The four khanates were connected by shared descent, shared customs, and (sometimes) shared armies, but they were increasingly separated by religion, language, and political interest. By the late 13th century, the unity of the empire was preserved more in theory than in practice, and the political reality was one of four semi-independent states. The standard academic judgment (Allsen 2001, Morgan 2007) is that the real end of the unified empire was the Toluid Civil War of 1260–1264, not the formal division that followed it.

The Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368)

The Yuan Dynasty was the khanate of the imperial heartland. Founded by Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, in 1271, it ruled over Mongolia, North China, South China, Korea, Tibet, and parts of Southeast Asia. Kublai, who had been the victor of the Toluid Civil War of 1260–1264, made his capital at Khanbaliq (modern Beijing) and adopted many features of the Chinese imperial system, including the title of emperor (huangdi) and the apparatus of the Confucian bureaucracy — though, as the Yuan pillar explains, the Mongols famously did not restore the Chinese civil-service exam.

The Yuan Dynasty was the wealthiest and most populous of the four khanates, and it was the cultural and political centre of the Mongol world for most of the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The Yuan court patronized Tibetan Buddhism, established a sophisticated system of paper money, and built a network of roads and canals that facilitated trade and communication. The Yuan court also hosted a number of European travellers, including the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, who is traditionally said to have served at the Yuan court in the late 13th century.

The Yuan Dynasty lasted until 1368, when it was overthrown by the Chinese Ming Dynasty after a long period of internal unrest, the Red Turban Rebellion of the 1350s, and a string of natural disasters (the Yellow River floods of 1344, the Black Death of the 1330s and 1340s). The last Yuan emperor, Toghon Temür (r. 1333–1370), fled to Mongolia, and the Mongol ruling class withdrew to the steppe, where they continued to rule the northern territories as the Northern Yuan. The Northern Yuan survived until the 17th century, when it was finally incorporated into the Manchu Qing Empire.

The Ilkhanate (1256–1335)

The Ilkhanate was the khanate of Persia and the Middle East. Founded by Hulagu Khan, a son of Tolui and a brother of the Great Khan Möngke, in 1256, it ruled over Persia, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, and parts of Anatolia and Central Asia. The Ilkhanate was the westernmost of the four khanates and the one most directly engaged with the Islamic world — and the one whose Mongol character was the most contested. As the Ilkhanate cluster explains, the conversion of the ruling class to Islam under Ghazan Khan in 1295 was not the cause of the rapprochement with the Mamluks (it was in fact the opposite), but it did begin the long process by which the Ilkhanate became a Persianate state with Mongol trappings.

The Ilkhanate lasted until 1335, when it collapsed after a long succession crisis. The last effective Ilkhan, Abu Sa’id, died without a clear heir, and the Ilkhanate broke up into a number of successor states, including the Jalairid, the Chobanid, and the Muzaffarid dynasties. The collapse of the Ilkhanate marked the end of Mongol rule in Persia and paved the way for the rise of Timur in the late 14th century.

The Golden Horde (1242–1502)

The Golden Horde was the khanate of the Russian steppes and the Volga basin. Founded by Batu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, in 1242, it ruled over the Russian principalities, the Volga basin, the Caucasus, and parts of Central Asia. The Golden Horde was the largest of the four khanates in territorial extent, and it was the most directly engaged with the Christian and Muslim worlds of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. (The name “Golden Horde” is a Russian rendering of the Turkic altun ordu; the standard account is that the name referred to the golden tent of the ruling khan, although the etymology is disputed.)

The Golden Horde ruled over the Russian principalities for more than two centuries, collecting tribute and intervening periodically in Russian political affairs. The famous yarlyk (royal diploma) that authorized the metropolitan of the Russian church to act as the head of the Russian Orthodox Church is the best-known single document of this relationship. The Golden Horde also conducted a long series of wars with the Ilkhanate, the Mamluk Sultanate, and the various Turkish states of Central Asia. The Golden Horde converted to Islam under Berke Khan (r. 1257–1266), the first Muslim Mongol ruler, and the city of Sarai, on the lower Volga, became one of the major centres of Islamic learning and culture in the medieval world.

The Golden Horde lasted until 1502, when it was finally broken by the rise of the Crimean Khanate and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The Crimean Khanate, which had broken away from the Golden Horde in the mid-15th century, was the direct successor of the Golden Horde in the southern steppes; the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which had been a tributary of the Golden Horde, became the dominant power in the northern steppes and eventually formed the basis of the Russian Empire. (Ivan III’s “Great Stand on the Ugra” of 1480, which ended the tributary relationship, is conventionally dated as the moment of Russian independence from the Mongols.)

The Chagatai Khanate (1226–1370)

The Chagatai Khanate was the khanate of Central Asia. Founded by Chagatai, the second son of Genghis Khan, in 1226, it ruled over Transoxiana, Kashgar, and parts of the Tarim Basin. The Chagatai Khanate was the most conservative of the four khanates and the one most resistant to the influence of the cultures of its subject populations.

The Chagatai Khanate was riven by internal divisions from the start. The eastern part of the khanate, centred on the Ili Valley and the Moghulistan heartland, was the heartland of the Mongol ruling class and was ruled by a line of Chagatai khans; the western part, centred on Transoxiana, was increasingly settled and Islamicized and was ruled by a line of military commanders (the darughachi) who were nominally subordinate to the khans. The khanate split into eastern and western halves in the mid-13th century, and the two halves were often at war with each other.

The Chagatai Khanate lasted until 1370, when it was absorbed by the empire of Timur (Tamerlane). Timur, a Barlas Turk who claimed descent from Chagatai, conquered the western part of the khanate in the 1360s and went on to build a vast empire that, at its height, stretched from Delhi to Anatolia. The Timurid Empire was the last great Central Asian empire of the medieval period, and it was a major patron of Islamic culture, particularly in the fields of architecture (the Timurid Renaissance of Samarkand and Herat), literature (the Chagatai Turkic literary tradition), and the visual arts (the Baysunghur school of manuscript illustration).

The Long Shadow of the Four Khanates

The four khanates of the Mongol world were, in their time, the most powerful states on earth. They ruled over most of Eurasia, from the Pacific to the Carpathians, and they left a deep imprint on the political, cultural, and genetic inheritance of the modern world. The khanates established the political frameworks within which the modern states of China, Russia, Iran, and the Central Asian republics would eventually emerge, and they set the patterns of trade, communication, and cultural exchange that would shape the modern world.

The legacy of the khanates is still visible in many aspects of contemporary life. The term “khan” is still used as a title in many parts of Central Asia, and the descendants of the Mongol ruling class are still represented in the political elites of several modern states. The Mongol Empire’s legacy in the modern world is complex and contested, but it is undeniably important.

Sources

Thomas T. Allsen, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire (Cambridge, 2001).
David Morgan, The Mongols (2nd ed., Oxford, 2007), ch. 5–7.
Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 (London, 2005).
John Man, Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Legacy (London, 2004), ch. 11–14.
Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (Berkeley, 1988).
George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance (London, 2003).
Marie Favereau, The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World (Cambridge, MA, 2021).