ABSTRACT
Before outlining the process whereby the Mongols, under Temujin (Chinggis Khan; d. 1227), created the largest continuous land empire in world history, it will be well to consider some general features of Inner Asian nomadic societies. In the tenth century, the Kitan created an empire that included parts of northern China, from which they expelled the native Song dynasty, and took the Chinese dynastic name of Liao (907–1125). As early as c.1208, Chinggis Khan's attention was being drawn towards Central Asia. By this time, the Qara-Khitai empire was moribund. In the west, its Muslim subordinates repudiated its authority. Although the Mongol empire had rapidly evolved into more than just a confederacy of steppe- and forest-dwelling peoples, it was governed very much as a large tribal federation. Chinggis Khan's extraordinary career of conquest and the ability of his successors to extend his empire still further rested on a number of foundations.
