Mongol

The Mongol group gathers the peoples of the Mongolian steppe: the Mongols proper, the western Oirats, the Kharchin and Tümed of the south, and the Sibe and Daur of Manchuria. Genghis Khan united them in 1206.

In 1337 Toghon Temür ruled the Yuan dynasty, the Mongol-led realm in China. The Ming drove the Yuan court north in 1368, and its descendants held the Mongolian plateau as the Northern Yuan until 1635. Dayan Khan reunited the eastern Mongols around 1500, and Altan Khan of the Tümed met the Dalai Lama in 1578. The Qing then took over the Mongol lands and destroyed the Oirat Dzungars in the 1750s.