What if the Mongol Empire Reunited Today?

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At its height in 1279, the Mongol Empire was the most powerful empire the world had ever seen. As mentioned in the blurb, the empire controlled contiguous land all the way from South Korea, in East Asia, to Poland, in Europe. It is amazing to think about how much land they conquered so quickly, in such an early time. However, gradually, the empire lost its territory and started to become significantly weaker than its previous self. Eventually, the Mongol Empire collapsed and was partitioned into 4 Major Khanates after the death of its mighty ruler, Kublai Khan, in 1294, marking the end of the Mongols. But what if the empire reunited to the exact borders it had in 1279 today?

Population and Land

As always, the first thing we need to think about is the population and the land of the newly reunited Mongol Empire. To start off, a total of 30 different countries would lose all or some of their territory to the empire with most of them being concentrated in Asia and the rest in Europe. Having all of these countries making up the empire, it would have a gargantuan area of 9,270,000 sq miles! This would make the united empire by far the largest country in the world coming well ahead of other massive countries like Russia (6,602,000 sq miles) and Canada (3,855,000 sq miles). However, very funnily, modern-day Mongolia's land area is only 603,909 sq miles which makes up only 6.5% of the entire empire's population! As well as an astronomic land area, the Mongol Empire would also have a massive population, in the billions, of a whopping 1,900,459,000 people or 24% of the entire world's population! This would also easily make it the most populous country in the world, beating up other very populated countries like China (1.4 Billion), which wouldn't exist anymore, and India (1.3 Billion). Next, we need to decide on a capital city for the reunited empire, which is actually quite difficult to think of. The most obvious choice you may think of would be Ulaanbaatar, which is already the capital of Mongolia, but the city wasn't even founded until the 15th century; long after the empire had faded into history. My choice would be Beijing, which is the capital of China and is already a massive financial and population center. However, this is not even near the largest city within the empire's borders. The Guangzhou/Shenzen urban area is more than double the population of Beijing standing at a massive 47,600,000 people, compared to Beijing's 20,000,000. Guangzhou/Shenzen is so large that if it was a country on its own, it would be the 29th most populous country in the world, having a greater population of huge countries like Kazakhstan and Algeria, which are more than 100x times the land area of the city! Here are the rest of the top 10 biggest urban areas of the Mongol Empire.
    1. Guangzhou/Shenzhen (47,600,000)
    2. Shanghai (34,100,000)
    3. Seoul (25,000,000)
    4. Beijing (20,000,000)
    5. Karachi (18,200,000)
    6. Moscow (17,400,000)
    7. Tehran (15,500,000)
    8. Lahore (13,500,000)
    9. Tianjin (13,200,000)
    10. Xiamen (10,200,000)
Territory of the Recreated Mongol Empire

GDP and Money

As well as a huge population and land area, the Mongol Empire would also have a huge economy. The GDP of the empire would stand at a massive $19.55 Trillion which would put it in 2nd place, well ahead of China ($16.64 Trillion), which wouldn't exist anymore, but also well behind the United States ($22.68 Trillion). However, despite having a large GDP, the Mongol Empire wouldn't have such a boastful GDP per Capita. This is mainly because of the quite poor areas of the empires like Pakistan, Ukraine, Iraq, Belarus, and many more. With all of this taken into consideration, the empire would have a GDP per Capita of around $10,289. This is actually not that bad if you compare it to other empires I have covered in the past like the British Empire ($6,153), and the Umayyad Caliphate ($8,027). Nonetheless, this would be enough to put it in 67th place, in terms of wages, just in front of Mexico ($9,870) but remaining behind Kazakhstan ($10,450). To make up for this, however, the Mongols would control a significant portion of the world's oil reserves at around 11.2% of the entire supply.

Religion and Ethnic Groups

Despite looking united on a map, the Mongol Empire would be very diverse in both religion and ethnicity. Starting with religion, the most followed religion within the empire would be Traditional Chinese Folk Religion with a majority of 58.5% adhering to it. The second-most followed religion would be Sunni Islam with 12.1% of the empire's population adhering to the religion. Buddhism would be next at 5.3%. Not far behind, at 4.6%, would be Orthodox Christianity, Shia Islam would make up 4.5%. Protestant Christianity would make up 2.2%, Catholics would make up 0.8%, and finally, Atheists and irreligious people would make up the final 12%. As well as religions, there would also be many different and diverse ethnic groups in the empire. Han Chinese would make up another big majority at 66% of the population. The next would be Russians, with the largest minority, at 6%, Indians and Pakistanis at 5.2%, 4% would be Koreans, and finally, 18.6% of the population would be a mix of other small ethnic groups.

Green = Islam

Purple = Orthodox Christianity

Yellow = Buddhism

Orange = Hinduism

Prevailing Religions in the area of the Mongol Territory

Military Size

Finally, we move onto the last part of this visualization, Military Size. The Mongols would possess a massive military with around 6,131,000 total troops in the case of mobilization. This would be made up of around 3,100,000 troops placed in reserves and another 3,031,000 active-duty personnel. The Mongol Empire would also be a nuclear power, inheriting all of China, North Korea, Pakistan, and Israel's nukes. This would give it a total of an estimated 610 nukes at its disposal.
Overall, it looks like the Mongol Empire would definitely become a superpower and an economic powerhouse competing on the world stage. It would be unclear to think about its future with all of this power but the theory is possible: Could its extreme diversity tear the empire apart or will it keep on going through time, united. This was another part of my Recreated Countries series and please let me know if you want me to continue it. This idea was from RealLifeLore and he is a great YouTuber for geography and I recommend you check him out! But for now, Goodbye!
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Level 43
May 15, 2021
Nice! Guangzhou/Shenzhen. That the debate start!
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Level 63
May 15, 2021
Thanks and lol! I would choose Guangzhou because it is a more financial city and has a bigger population than Shenzhen.
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Level 54
May 15, 2021
Great blog! Very interesting to read!
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Level 63
May 15, 2021
Thanks so much!
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Level 65
May 15, 2021
Great content, though I would have liked for it to be formatted as Oceania instead of Pangaea.
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Level 63
May 15, 2021
Thanks, though I don't really understand what you mean by "Oceania" and Pangaea".
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Level 65
May 15, 2021
Oceania as in paragraphs, and Pangaea as in a mass of words.
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Level 63
May 17, 2021
Oh, okay. I haven't heard about that but I will keep it in mind for other blogs in the series. Thanks for letting me know!
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Level 71
May 15, 2021
This series has been made up of great blogs
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Level 63
May 15, 2021
Thanks a lot!
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Level 42
May 15, 2021
When will the Tibetan Empire be out
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Level 42
May 15, 2021
And what about the Khmer Empire
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Level 42
May 15, 2021
Turnback Empire
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Level 43
May 16, 2021
Minas Gerais Empire

Blog Empire

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Level 42
May 17, 2021
Request it on Clutch's blog
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Level 63
May 15, 2021
I have decided that I will only do very significant empires for the series so I might not do the Tibetan Empire.
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Level 42
May 16, 2021
What about Khmer Empire
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Level 63
May 16, 2021
@PharaohsofAthens Thanks! I will do some research into the Japanese Empire and I will see what I can do.
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Level 63
May 16, 2021
@Turnbacktwo I will see what I can do. I have never heard about the Khmer Empire so I will do research into that as well.
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Level 59
May 15, 2021
Great Blog!
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Level 63
May 16, 2021
Thanks!
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Level 54
May 16, 2021
Nice, if it reunited, we will collapse
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Level 63
May 16, 2021
Thanks and yep! If it reunited, I don't think the Arabs will be too happy.
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Level 42
May 16, 2021
All of the countries would hate them not Arabs only they literally were destroying all cultures.
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Level 63
May 16, 2021
Yes, you are right. Practically all of Asia would be dominated by the Mongols.
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Level 42
May 16, 2021
Great Blog! I like this series. Well it is good that Egypt stopped them because I am sure they wouldn't stop at this but continue till Europe.
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Level 63
May 16, 2021
Thank You!