Division of the Mongol Empire in the context of "Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty"

The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus (lit. 'Great State' in Turkic), was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century, originating from the northwestern part of the Mongol Empire. After the division of the Mongol Empire in 1259, it became a functionally independent khanate. It is also known as the Kipchak Khanate or the Ulus of Jochi, and replaced the earlier, less organized Cuman–Kipchak confederation.

It originally consisted of the lands bequeathed to Jochi (d. 1225). It greatly grew in size under Batu Khan, the founder of the Blue Horde. After Batu's death in 1255, his dynasty flourished for a full century, until 1359, though the intrigues of Nogai instigated a partial civil war in the late 1290s. The Horde's military power peaked during the reign of Özbeg Khan (1312–1341), who adopted Islam. The territory of the Golden Horde at its peak extended from Siberia and Central Asia to parts of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the Danube in the west, and from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea in the south, while bordering the Caucasus Mountains and the territories of the Mongol dynasty known as the Ilkhanate.

Various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu (3rd century BC–1st century AD), the Xianbei state (c. AD 93–234), the Rouran Khaganate (330–555), the First (552–603) and Second Turkic Khaganates (682–744) and others, ruled the area of present-day Mongolia. The Khitan people, who used a para-Mongolic language, founded an empire known as the Liao dynasty (916–1125), and ruled Mongolia and portions of North China, northern Korea, and the present-day Russian Far East.

In 1206, Genghis Khan was able to unite the Mongol tribes, forging them into a fighting force which went on to establish the largest contiguous empire in world history, the Mongol Empire (1206–1368). After the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire, Mongolia came to be ruled by the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) based in Khanbaliq (modern Beijing) and administered as part of the Lingbei Province. Buddhism in Mongolia began with the Yuan emperors' conversion to and dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai (Emperor Shizu or Setsen Khan), the fifth khagan-emperor of the Mongol Empire from the Borjigin clan, and lasted from 1271 to 1368. In Chinese history, the Yuan dynasty followed the Song dynasty and preceded the Ming dynasty.

Although Genghis Khan's enthronement as Khagan in 1206 was described in Chinese as the Han-style title of Emperor and the Mongol Empire had ruled territories including modern-day northern China for decades, it was not until 1271 that Kublai Khan officially proclaimed the dynasty in the traditional Han style, and the conquest was not complete until 1279 when the Southern Song dynasty was defeated in the Battle of Yamen. His realm was, by this point, isolated from the other Mongol-led khanates and controlled most of modern-day China and its surrounding areas, including modern-day Mongolia. It was the first dynasty founded by a non-Han ethnicity that ruled all of China proper. In 1368, following the defeat of the Yuan forces by the Ming dynasty, the Genghisid rulers retreated to the Mongolian Plateau and continued to rule until 1635 when they surrendered to the Later Jin dynasty (which later evolved into the Qing dynasty). The rump state is known in historiography as the Northern Yuan.

Khagan or Qaghan (Middle Mongol:ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ; Khaan or Khagan; Old Turkic: 𐰴𐰍𐰣 Kaɣan) is a title of imperial rank in Turkic, Mongolic, and some other languages, equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate (empire). The female equivalent is Khatun.

It may also be translated as "Khan of Khans", equivalent to King of Kings. In Bulgarian, the title became known as Khan, while in modern Turkic, the title became Khaan with the g sound becoming almost silent or non-existent; the ğ in modern Turkish Kağan is also silent. After the division of the Mongol Empire, monarchs of the Yuan dynasty and the Northern Yuan held the title of Khagan. Kağan, Hakan and Kaan, Turkish equivalents of the title are common Turkish names in Turkey.

Kublai Khan (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. He proclaimed the dynastic name "Great Yuan" in 1271, and ruled Yuan China until his death in 1294.

Kublai was the second son of Tolui by his chief wife Sorghaghtani Beki, and a grandson of Genghis Khan. He was almost 12 when Genghis Khan died in 1227. He had succeeded his older brother Möngke as Khagan in 1260, but had to defeat his younger brother Ariq Böke in the Toluid Civil War lasting until 1264. This episode marked the beginning of the division of the Mongol Empire. Kublai's real power was limited to the Yuan Empire, even though as Khagan he still influenced the Ilkhanate and, to a significantly lesser degree, the Golden Horde.

The Pax Mongolica (Latin for "Mongol Peace"), less often known as Pax Tatarica ("Tatar Peace"), is a historiographical term modeled after the original phrase Pax Romana which describes the stabilizing effects of the conquests of the Mongol Empire on the social, cultural and economic life of the inhabitants of the vast Eurasian territory that the Mongols conquered in the 13th and 14th centuries. The term is used to describe the eased communication and commerce that the unified administration helped to create and the period of relative peace that followed the Mongols' vast and violent conquests.

The conquests of Genghis Khan (r. 1206–1227) and his successors, spanning from Southeast Asia to Eastern Europe, effectively took over the Eastern world with the Western world. The Silk Road, connecting trade centres across Asia and Europe, came under the sole rule of the Mongol Empire. It was commonly said that "a maiden bearing a nugget of gold on her head could wander safely throughout the realm". Despite the political fragmentation of the Mongol Empire into four khanates (Yuan dynasty, Golden Horde, Chagatai Khanate and Ilkhanate), nearly a century of conquest and civil war was followed by relative stability in the early 14th century. The end of the Pax Mongolica was marked by the disintegration of the khanates and the outbreak of the Black Death in Asia which spread along trade routes to much of the world in the mid-14th century.

Khanbaliq (Chinese: 汗八里; pinyin: Hánbālǐ; Mongolian: ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ ᠪᠠᠯᠭᠠᠰᠤ, Qaɣan balɣasu) or Dadu (Chinese: 元大都; pinyin: Yuán Dàdū; Mongolian: ᠳᠠᠶ᠋ᠢᠳᠤ, Dayidu) was the winter capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty in what is now Beijing, the capital of China today. It was located at the center of modern Beijing. The Secretariat directly administered the Central Region (腹裏) of the Yuan dynasty (comprising present-day Beijing, Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, and parts of Henan and Inner Mongolia) and dictated policies for the other provinces. As emperors of the Yuan dynasty, Kublai Khan and his successors also claimed supremacy over the entire Mongol Empire following the death of Möngke (Kublai's brother and predecessor) in 1259. Over time the unified empire gradually fragmented into a number of khanates.

Khanbaliq is the direct predecessor to modern Beijing. Several stations of the modern city's subway's Line 10 and Line 13 are named after the gates of Dadu.

The Yuan dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China, proclaimed on 18 December 1271 by Kublai Khan, which succeeded the Song dynasty and preceded the Ming dynasty. It also functioned as a continuation of the Mongol Empire, which was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206, but which subsequently split into four autonomous states. The emperors of the Yuan dynasty thus comprise both Kublai's successors as rulers of China and his predecessors up to his grandfather Genghis, who was retrospectively presented as the founder of the dynasty.

The rulers of the Yuan dynasty were nominally superior to those of the other three post-Mongol states, but each was de facto independent of the others and occupied with their own territories. The Yuan dynasty adopted Han political traditions, including the use of posthumous names, temple names and era names. Aside from the title of emperor, Yuan rulers also concurrently held the title of khagan.