The Mongol Empire, history's largest land empire

Beginning with Genghis Khan's unification of the steppe tribes in 1206, the Mongols built the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever seen. Within a single lifetime their armies swept from the Pacific coast of Asia to the plains of Hungary, toppling the Jin and Song dynasties of China, the Khwarazmian Empire of Central Asia, and the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad.

By 1279, when Kublai Khan completed the conquest of southern China and founded the Yuan dynasty, the empire spanned around 24 million km2. Scrub the timeline in ChronoAtlas to watch it explode outward and then splinter into the four khanates that succeeded it.

Key facts

• At its height the empire covered roughly 24 million km2 - about 16% of the world's land area.
• Mongol postal relay stations, the yam, let messengers cover 300 km a day across the empire.
• The Pax Mongolica reopened and secured the Silk Road, letting travellers like Marco Polo cross the continent.
• After Kublai Khan the empire divided into the Yuan, the Ilkhanate, the Chagatai Khanate and the Golden Horde.