lettered by Abraham Ortelius, 1570
Hand-coloured 1570 map of Tartary by Abraham Ortelius, with a round title cartouche, tents of the khans, and Japan and the American coast to the east

What did the people who went there write down?

2,029 passages from travellers, envoys, captives and monks.

Map by Ortelius, 1570

One passage from the record

BuildingsPontic-Caspian steppe1253

A house thirty feet wide, pulled by twenty-two oxen

Some Mongol houses were never taken down but rode on huge carts. Rubruck measured one cart himself and counted the oxen. The axle was as thick as a ship's mast and a driver stood in the doorway of the house. On the next pages he describes felt-covered chests on carts and a rich man's camp of one or two hundred carts.

I myself once measured the width between the wheel-tracks of a cart xx feet, and when the house was on the cart it projected beyond the wheels on either side v feet at least. I have myself counted to one cart xxii oxen drawing one house, eleven abreast across the width of the cart, and the other eleven before them.

William of Rubruck (translated by W. W. Rockhill, 1900)

About Tartars (Mongols of the Golden Horde)

Keep in mind

Rockhill thinks these carts were exceptionally large ones.

Explore this Tartaria taleFriar William's journey to the Mongol court, with Carpini and Benedict the Pole1245 to 1255 · 21 passages
See the original page (p. 55)

One name, many hands

The word as the mapmakers lettered it, cut from their own maps.

See the many Tartarys
Turn the dial26 old maps laid on the real earth, from 1516 to 1894. Watch the word Tartary arrive, swell, split and fade, and see on today's map what ground each mapmaker gave it.Watch the name move

Follow a question

Map detail: red town symbols around Samarcand and Bukhara, with the tents of the Great Khan drawn beside themCitiesDid the Tartars have cities?Capitals, camps that worked as cities, towns taken and towns ruined, and who each source says built them.409 passagesMap detail: clusters of round felt tents, covered wagons and camels drawn on the steppeBuildingsWhat did they build, and what did they live in?Felt tents, houses on wagons, timber, brick and stone, mosques, palaces and tombs, and whom each source credits as the builder.463 passagesMap detail: a caravan of loaded camels and riders on horsebackDaily lifeHow did they live?Food and drink, marriage, burial, faith, law, dress, horses, war and trade, as visitors and neighbours wrote them down.514 passagesMap detail: a round ornamental cartouche lettered Tartariae sive Magni Chami Regni typusThe nameWho were the Tartars, and where did the name come from?Origin stories, the Tatar tribe and the Mongols, Tartar used for Manchus and for Siberian peoples, the Tartarus pun, and Tartary as a label on maps.356 passagesEngraving of a lamb growing on a stalk like a plant, grazing the grass around itStrange talesWhat are the strangest things the sources say?Monsters and marvels, Gog and Magog, Prester John, the vegetable lamb, and rumours the authors themselves doubted, each marked as seen, heard or legend.287 passages
Draw three from the deckOne place, one people, one marvel, dealt at random from the record.Deal me in

Step into the map room

Tartary as the mapmakers drew it, from 1375 to the last years the name was in use.

See all 89 maps
Map: Catalan Atlas, Catalan Atlas, 13751375Catalan AtlasMap: New and complete description of Russia, Muscovy and Tartary, London 1562, Jenkinson, 15621562JenkinsonNew and complete description of Russia, Muscovy and Tartary…Map: Tartaria (Tartary), with Hondius's address 'Jodocus Hondius lectori salutem, Hondius, 16061606HondiusTartaria (Tartary), with Hondius’s address ‘Jodocus Hondius…Map: Carte de Tartarie, Guillaume Delisle, 17061706Guillaume DelisleCarte de TartarieMap: New geographical description of Great Tartary, eastern and western, in its particular and…, Strahlenberg, 1720s1720sStrahlenbergNew geographical description of Great Tartary, eastern and…Map: A new map of Chinese and Independent Tartary, from the latest authorities, 1806, Cary, 18061806CaryA new map of Chinese and Independent Tartary, from the latest…

Ride with a traveler

Pick a road. The line draws itself, and at each stop you read what they wrote there.

See all 6 rides
1220 to 1224An old sage crosses Asia to meet the KhanThe Daoist master Changchun travels from Shandong across Mongolia and Central Asia to Genghis Khan's camp near the Hindu Kush, at the Khan's summons.16 stops · 16 passages on the road1253 to 1255A friar rides to the Great KhanA Flemish friar travels from Constantinople across the steppe to the Mongol court at Karakorum and back, hoping to preach there.16 stops · 14 passages on the road1692 to 1695The tsars' envoy rides to PekingA merchant in Russian service carries the tsars' letter from Moscow across Siberia to the Kangxi emperor in Peking, and comes home again.18 stops · 15 passages on the road

Meet a witness

Six people who were there. Meet all 225.

1245 to 1255Friar William's journey to the Mongol court, with Carpini and Benedict the PoleThree friars' eyewitness reports from the Mongol empire: Carpini and Benedict in 1245 to 1247, William of Rubruck in 1253 to 1255.Eyewitness · 21 passages1220 to 1259Fine Talk from the Jade Hall: two Chinese journeys through the Mongol worldWang Yun's notebook preserving a Chinese scholar's 1247 to 1248 journey to Khubilai's camp in Mongolia and an envoy's 1259 ride west to Hulegu in Persia.Part eyewitness · 14 passages1325 to 1354Ibn Battuta's travels, in Samuel Lee's 1829 abridged translationThe Moroccan traveller's account of the Golden Horde, Central Asia, India and China in the 1330s and 1340s, from an Arabic abridgement.Part eyewitness · 17 passages1466 to 1533The memoirs of Babur, Timurid prince and founder of Mughal IndiaBabur's own Turki memoir of his wars in Fergana, Samarkand, Kabul and India, in the 1826 Leyden and Erskine translation.Part eyewitness · 16 passages1715 to 1738John Bell's travels from St Petersburg across AsiaA Scottish doctor's eyewitness account of Russian embassies to Persia, Peking, Derbent and Constantinople, 1715 to 1738.Eyewitness · 18 passages1750 to 1779Baron de Tott's memoirs of the Crimean Tatar courtA French officer's memoir of his years as consul to the Crimean Khan, 1767 to 1769, including a Tatar winter campaign.Eyewitness · 15 passages

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