East Asia · Fragmentation, Song and the conquest dynasties
Yuan Dynasty
1271–1368
The Yuan (1271–1368) was the Chinese dynasty founded by Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, who proclaimed it in 1271 and conquered the Southern Song by 1279, capital Dadu (Beijing). It ruled all China under a Mongol elite with a four-class ethnic hierarchy.
- Existed
- 1271–1368
- Shown on the map
- 1294–1374
- Peak area
- 15.8M km²
- Region
- East Asia
Overview
The Yuan (1271–1368) was the Chinese dynasty founded by Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, who proclaimed it in 1271 and conquered the Southern Song by 1279, capital Dadu (Beijing). It ruled all China under a Mongol elite with a four-class ethnic hierarchy. It fostered trade (Marco Polo), drama, and the arts, but faced ethnic tension, fiscal mismanagement (inflation of paper money), and natural disasters. The Red Turban rebellions drove the Mongols out in 1368; the court retreated north as the Northern Yuan.
Common questions
- What was the Yuan Dynasty?
- The Yuan (1271–1368) was the Chinese dynasty founded by Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, who proclaimed it in 1271 and conquered the Southern Song by 1279, capital Dadu (Beijing). It ruled all China under a Mongol elite with a four-class ethnic hierarchy.
- When did the Yuan Dynasty exist?
- The Yuan Dynasty existed 1271–1368. On this map it is drawn 1294–1374.
- How large was the Yuan Dynasty?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Yuan Dynasty covered about 16 million km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia article for each polity as the basis of these profiles, supplemented by Encyclopaedia Britannica, chinaknowledge.de, the World History Encyclopedia, museum and university sources, and the academic works it lists. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Yuan dynasty en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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