50 free The Mongol Empire trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire the world has known, stretching from Korea to Hungary within two generations of Genghis Khan's election in 1206, and this quiz covers the whole arc: the unification of the steppe tribes, the Yassa law code, the decimal army, the conquests of China, Persia and Rus', the sack of Baghdad, the typhoons that saved Japan, the succession wars that split the empire into four khanates, and the roads, relay stations and religious tolerance that let Marco Polo travel to Xanadu. Easy questions ask who founded the empire and what its capital was; harder ones dig into the caliph killed by trampling, the Parisian goldsmith's silver drinks tree, the battle that halted the Mongols in Galilee and the year Moscow finally shook off the Tatar yoke. It suits world-history students, strategy-game fans and quiz nights that want a round beyond Genghis himself. BrainPickle's Genghis Khan and Mongolia quizzes go deeper on the man and the modern country. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the empire, its khans, khanates and battles, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What record does the Mongol Empire hold in world history?
Largest contiguous land realm ever
At its height it stretched from the Sea of Japan to Eastern Europe; the British Empire was larger overall but scattered across oceans.
Q 02What was Genghis Khan's birth name?
Temüjin
He was born around 1162; his father Yesugei was poisoned by Tatars and the family was abandoned on the steppe.
Q 03In what year did a kurultai proclaim Temüjin ruler of all the Mongols?
1206
The shaman Teb Tenggeri proclaimed him khan of the Great Mongol Nation; the meaning of the title Genghis is still uncertain.
Q 04What is a kurultai?
A Mongol assembly that elected khans
All princes of Genghis's line had to attend one to choose a successor, which is why armies withdrew when a great khan died.
Q 05Genghis Khan reorganised the army and society on what numerical system?
Decimal units of tens, hundreds and thousands
Favoured followers, some of low birth, were given command of ninety-five minqad, units of a thousand.
Q 06What was the name of the law code Genghis Khan proclaimed?
The Yassa
It forbade selling women, theft, fighting among Mongols and hunting animals in the breeding season.
Q 07Which people's writing system did Genghis Khan adopt for Mongolian?
The Uyghurs'
The Uyghur scribe Tata-tonga was ordered to teach his sons, and the resulting Mongolian script is still used in Mongolia.
Q 08Which two groups did Genghis exempt from taxation?
The poor and the clergy
He also decreed religious freedom for his subjects, though he was a shamanist himself.
Q 09Which Central Asian state did Genghis invade after its ruler executed his envoys?
The Khwarazmian shahdom
The campaign devastated Transoxiana and Khorasan, and Jebe and Subutai rode on as far as Georgia and Kievan Rus'.
Q 10What happened to Genghis Khan's body after his death in 1227?
He was buried in a secret location
He died while subduing the rebellious Western Xia; his empire already stretched from the Pacific to the Caspian.
Q 11Which son did Genghis Khan name as his heir?
Ögedei
His third son took the throne in 1229 after Tolui's two-year regency.
Q 12Why was the paternity of Genghis's eldest son Jochi in doubt?
His mother Börte had been kidnapped by the Merkit
The raid was revenge for Yesugei's abduction of Hö'elün; Jochi's line later ruled the Golden Horde.
Q 13Which city did the Mongols establish as their capital in 1235?
Karakorum
It stayed the capital until 1260; its ruins lie beside the Erdene Zuu monastery in the Orkhon Valley.
Q 21Who ruled the empire as regent after Ögedei's death, securing the election of her son Güyük?
Töregene
She persecuted her husband's Khitan and Muslim officials and built palaces and cathedrals on an imperial scale.
Q 22Which Christian princess raised all four of her sons, including Möngke and Kublai, to rule?
Sorghaghtani Beki
A Keraite member of the Church of the East, she secretly warned Batu when Güyük marched west in 1248.
Q 23Möngke's 1251 election shifted power from Ögedei's line to descendants of which son of Genghis?
Tolui
A purge followed; estimates of executed Mongol elites range from 77 to 300.
Q 14What did the Parisian goldsmith Guillaume Boucher build in the Mongol capital for Möngke Khan?
A silver tree that dispensed drinks
Its pipes poured various drinks and it was topped by a triumphant angel.
Q 15Which Chinese dynasty did Ögedei's armies destroy in 1234, capturing Kaifeng?
The Jin
The Song helped finish off the Jin, then became the Mongols' next target for forty years.
Q 16Which Rus' principality was the first the Mongols attacked in 1237?
Ryazan
After a three-day siege they massacred the inhabitants; by 1240 nearly all Kievan Rus' had fallen.
Q 17Which grandson of Genghis Khan led the invasion of Rus' and Europe?
Batu
His territories became the Golden Horde, ruled by the descendants of Jochi.
Q 18At the Battle of the Kalka River in 1223, how were the defeated Rus' princes killed?
Suffocated under the victors' feast platform
Jebe and Subutai's reconnaissance in force had reached Ukraine after circling the Caspian.
Q 19Which Hungarian king was defeated by the Mongols at Mohi on the Sajó river in April 1241?
Béla IV
Two days earlier a Polish-Moravian force under Henry the Pious had been crushed at Legnica in Silesia.
Q 20What news halted the Mongol advance on Vienna in 1241?
The death of Ögedei Khan
All princes had to return for a kurultai, though historians now think climate and Europe's castles also played a part.
Q 24Which brother of Möngke sacked Baghdad in 1258, ending the Abbasid Caliphate?
Hulagu
Hulagu later put the death toll at around 200,000; the sack is ranked among the great catastrophes of Islamic history.
Q 25How was the last Abbasid caliph, al-Musta'sim, executed by the Mongols?
Rolled in a carpet and trampled by horses
Spilling royal blood was a great taboo for the Mongols, hence the carpet.
Q 26Which battle of 1260 marked the western limit of Mongol expansion in the Middle East?
Ain Jalut
The Egyptian Mamluks defeated Kitbuqa's force just north of Galilee after Hulagu had withdrawn most of his army.
Q 27Who defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut?
The Mamluks of Egypt
Sultan Qutuz had answered Hulagu's envoys by killing them and displaying their heads on a Cairo gate.
Q 28Which two brothers fought the Toluid Civil War of 1260 to 1264 after rival kurultais elected them both?
Kublai and Ariq Böke
Ariq Böke surrendered at Xanadu in August 1264, but the empire never fully reunited.
Q 29Into which four khanates had the empire fractured by Kublai's death in 1294?
Golden Horde, Chagatai, Ilkhanate and Yuan
In 1304 the three western khanates accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Yuan.
Q 30What Han-style dynastic name did Kublai proclaim by edict in December 1271?
Great Yuan
By 1279 he had finished off the Song and become the first non-Han emperor to rule all of China proper.