Mongolia, with the lowest population density of any country in the worldâ??about 2 people per square kilometerâ??would appear an unlikely birthplace for the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world. Todayâ??s inhabitants (which number fewer than three million in a country the size of California, Texas, Montana and West Virginia combined) are largely dependent on livestock production for their livelihoods. Much of the population practices a form of nomadic pastoralism in which herders follow their animals.
But in the early 1200s, Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and began invading neighbors in all directions. The Mongol Empire continued to grow after his death, led by the mighty leaderâ??s sons and grandsons, who pushed their armies into regions as far as eastern Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Korea.
This great empire was made possible not by brilliant leadership alone, but by a 15-year period of abnormal moisture and warmth in central Mongolia in the early 1200s, according to Neil Pederson of Columbia Universityâ??s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and colleagues, who report their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A brief change in the local climate, they say, was key in the rise of the Mongols.
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