The history of Mongolia - a vast land inhabited by very mobile nomadic herders and very open to its powerful neighbors - is made, more than anywhere else in the world, of conquests, mergers and alliances...
Many ethnic groups have fought or allied for the conquest of land sometimes very distant.
From the third century BC, the terrible Xiongnu (which descended the Huns and their leader Attila) engage in a struggle against their southern neighbors, the Chinese, which will last for centuries and even justify the construction of the Great Wall of China.
The different Mongolian ethnies followed the Xiongnu, gradually coming together to give birth to an empire in extent and power rarely equaled in the 13th century.
The history of Mongolia is dominated by the mythic stature of Genghis Khan who, as leader of hordes of nomadic tribes reunited under its banner, conquered in the 13th century the largest empire the world has ever known.
His successors conquered Central Asia, China, the Middle East, Russia ... They pushed west to Austria in the east, they attacked (unsuccessfully) Japan, southern Burma, and even went so far as Indonesia.
The Mongol Empire at its peak covered up to about 33 million square kilometers.
This empire began to collapse in 1368, with the loss of China.
In the sixteenth century during the reign of Altan Khan, the Mongols convert to Tibetan Buddhism.
A century later, they fall under the domination of Manchus. The country parted then between Inner and Outer Mongolia (now independent Mongolia).
Taking advantage of the Chinese revolution of 1911 and the ouster of the last Manchu emperor Puyi, Mongolia declared its independence on December 1, 1911 as autonomous Mongolia.
A popular uprising led by Sukhbaatar occurs in 1921.
September 14, 1921 : Proclamation of Independence of Mongolia by Sukhbaatar.
Mongolian People's Republic was proclaimed November 26, 1924.
After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism in Mongolia in 1990, the country adopted a democratic constitution in 1992.
