World-changing1205 – 1279 · 74 years
Mongol Conquest of China
China · Yangtze River · Yellow River
Genghis Khan's successors conquered all of China (1205-1279), establishing Mongol Yuan Dynasty and demonstrating conquest's military supremacy.
Estimated casualties
10M – 40Mestimated dead
HEADLINE20M — the single figure used on the map
Jin/Song census fell from ~120M to ~60M; how much was death rather than unregistered population is disputed
SOURCEWikipedia: Mongol conquest of China; Clodfelter
What happened
Genghis Khan invaded the Jin Dynasty (northern China) in 1205. His successors continued conquest through 1279, when Kublai Khan completed the conquest of the Song Dynasty. China's population fell from 123 million (1200) to perhaps 60-80 million by 1300, due to warfare, massacre, and famine. Entire cities were razed; agricultural regions abandoned. Mongols adopted Chinese administrative practices but maintained military supremacy. Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) ruled until Han Chinese Ming dynasty restored Han rule.
Why it mattered
Mongol conquest of China showed that military superiority could overcome civilizational advantage. The conquest killed tens of millions. Kublai Khan's establishment of Yuan Dynasty demonstrated foreign conquerors' need to adopt indigenous legitimacy. The Yuan Dynasty's eventual overthrow showed that foreign rule required cultural assimilation or would face persistent resistance. Modern China views the Mongol invasion as a cautionary tale of vulnerability. The conquest influenced Chinese nationalism and historical consciousness about defense against 'barbarian' invasion.
Belligerents3
- Mongol Empire
- Jin Dynasty
- Song Dynasty
ON THE MAPMongol EmpireJurchen Jin DynastySouthern Song Dynasty
Conflict graph
SUB-CONFLICTS · 4
Sources
- Wikipedia: Mongol Conquest of China
- Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts (4th ed., 2017)
- Wikipedia — text reused under CC BY-SA 4.0
Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 1205 and opens this record.
Cite as: Mongol Conquest of China (1205 – 1279). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/c/mongol-invasion-china · Sources & methodology