The Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of Mongolic peoples. The Oirats in Western Mongolia as well as the Buryats and Kalmyks of Russia are classified either as distinct ethno-linguistic groups or subgroups of Mongols.
Khong Tayiji, also spelled Qong Tayiji, was a title of the Mongols, derived from the Chinese term Huangtaizi.
The Kalmyks are a Mongolic ethnic group living mainly in Russia, whose ancestors migrated from Dzungaria. They created the Kalmyk Khanate from 1635 to 1779 in Russia's North Caucasus territory. Today they form a majority in Kalmykia, located in the Kalmyk Steppe, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea.
The Dzungar Khanate, also written as the Zunghar Khanate, was an Inner Asian khanate of Oirat Mongol origin. At its greatest extent, it covered an area from southern Siberia in the north to present-day Kyrgyzstan in the south, and from the Great Wall of China in the east to present-day Kazakhstan in the west. The core of the Dzungar Khanate is today part of northern Xinjiang, also called Dzungaria.
Oirats are the westernmost group of the Mongols whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of Siberia, Xinjiang and western Mongolia.
Choros Erdeniin Galdan was a Dzungar-Oirat Khan of the Dzungar Khanate. As fourth son of Erdeni Batur, founder of the Dzungar Khanate, Galdan was a descendant of Esen Taishi, the powerful Oirat Khan of the Northern Yuan dynasty who united all Mongols in the 15th century. Galdan's mother Yum Aga was a daughter of Güshi Khan, the first Khoshut-Oirat King of Tibet.
The Northern Yuan was a dynastic regime ruled by the Mongol Borjigin clan based in the Mongolian Plateau. It existed as a rump state after the collapse of the Yuan dynasty in 1368 and lasted until its conquest by the Jurchen-led Later Jin dynasty in 1635. The Northern Yuan dynasty began with the retreat of the Yuan imperial court led by Toghon Temür to the Mongolian steppe. Although Yuan authority in most of China proper collapsed by 1368, Yuan loyalists in Yunnan led by Basalawarmi survived until their defeat by the Ming in 1382. This period featured factional struggles and the often only nominal role of the Great Khan.
Choros or Tsoros was the ruling clan of the Ööld and Dörbet Oirat and once ruled the whole Four Oirat. They founded the Dzungar Khanate in the 17th century. Their chiefs reckoned their descent from a boy nourished by a sacred tree.
The Four Oirat ; also Oirads and formerly Eleuths, alternatively known as the Alliance of the Four Oirat Tribes or the Oirat Confederation, was the confederation of the Oirat tribes which marked the rise of the Western Mongols in the history of the Mongolian Plateau.
Various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei state, 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.
Mönkhbatyn Urantsetseg is a Mongolian sambist and retired judoka who competed in the 48 kg category, and World Champion in both sports. In 2021, she won one of the bronze medals in the women's 48 kg event at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
The Kalmyk Khanate was an Oirat khanate on the Eurasian steppe. It extended over modern Kalmykia and surrounding areas in the North Caucasus, including Stavropol and Astrakhan. During their independence, the Kalmyks both raided and allied with Russia in turn, engaging in numerous military expeditions against the Crimean Tatars, the Ottoman Empire, neighboring Muslim tribes, and the highlanders of the North Caucasus. The Khanate was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1771.
The Dzungar–Qing Wars were a decades-long series of conflicts that pitted the Dzungar Khanate against the Qing dynasty and its Mongol vassals. Fighting took place over a wide swath of Inner Asia, from present-day central and eastern Mongolia to Tibet, Qinghai, and Xinjiang regions of present-day China. Qing victories ultimately led to the incorporation of Outer Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang into the Qing Empire that was to last until the fall of the dynasty in 1911–1912, and the genocide of much of the Dzungar population in the conquered areas.
Amursana was an 18th-century taishi or prince of the Khoit-Oirat tribe that ruled over parts of Dzungaria and Altishahr in present-day northwest China. Known as the last great Oirat hero, Amursana was the last of the Dzungar rulers. The defeat of his rebel forces by Qing dynasty Chinese armies in the late 1750s signaled the final extinction of Mongol influence and power in Inner Asia, ensured the incorporation of Mongol territory into the Qing Chinese Empire, and brought about the Dzungar genocide, the Qing Emperor's "final solution" to China's northwest frontier problems.
Dawachi was the last khan of the Dzungar Khanate from 1753 until his defeat at the hands of Qing and Mongol forces at Ili in 1755.
The Kazakh–Dzungar Wars (1643–1756) were a series of long conflicts between the Kazakh Juzes and Dzungar Khanate. The strategic goal for the Dzungars was to increase their territories by taking neighboring lands that were part of the Kazakh Khanate. The Dzungars were not only seen as a threat by the Kazakhs, but for the rest of Central Asia and the Russian Empire itself.
