The Mongol Conquests, Map by Map (1206–1279)

How a boy abandoned on the steppe became Genghis Khan, and how his sons and grandsons built the largest contiguous empire in history: from Beijing and Samarkand to Kiev, Baghdad and the shores of Japan, told on animated maps. Borders are approximate, reconstructed from modern boundaries (Natural Earth, public domain); tributary states (the Rus' principalities, Goryeo, the Seljuks of Rum) are shown as part of the empire. Medieval casualty figures are uncertain and often exaggerated; we give ranges and say so. Images (all public domain): Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan, Yuan-era album portraits (National Palace Museum, Taipei); Mongol tents from the Jami' al-tawarikh of Rashid al-Din; the Battle of Legnica, Hedwig Codex (1353); the siege of Baghdad, Diez Albums (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin); the Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba scrolls (c. 1293). Narration, music and animation made with AI-assisted tools and fact-checked. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_o...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_... (full list in the pinned comment) Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:28 Part I · 1162–1206: The Boy from the Onon 1:29 Part II · 1209–1215: Over the Great Wall 2:04 Part III · 1218–1223: The Caravan at Otrar 3:44 Part IV · 1225–1235: The Khan Is Dead 4:35 Part V · 1236–1240: The Winter War 5:17 Part VI · 1241–1242: Into Europe 6:18 Part VII · 1251–1260: The Fall of Baghdad 7:19 Part VIII · 1260–1281: Kublai Khan 8:28 Epilogue: One Empire, Four Khanates #history #mongols #genghiskhan #maps #empires