Although archaeological digs have revealed human habitation in Mongolia going back to 5000 years, the term 'Mongol’ came to be used in reference to the nomadic people of this barren land only after the 9th century. At this time the Uighurs dominated most of Mongolia, founding several cities and in a manner of speaking, making the region one composite whole.  By the 9th century, the Uighurs lost ground to the Kirghiz, thereby putting paid to any Mongol aspirations. The country’s fortunes remained at a low ebb until the 12th century, when the most famous 'barbarian'   amongst all barbarians, the mighty Genghis Khan or Chinggis Khan seized power. Mongolia united under the leadership  of the great Khan, setting out on the road to empire expansion and consolidation of the entire region.

The Mongol Empire reached its zenith during the reign of   Genghis’ grandson, Kublai Khan. Under Kublai Khan, the Mongols had subjugated most of Eurasia, conquered China, established the Yuan kingdom and expanded the empire all the way from Hungary to Korea and Vietnam -  making for a very widespread empire, amongst the largest in history.

The Mongols were finally evicted from China in the mid 1300s, when the Ming dynasty came to power. They returned to their own country and were at once embroiled in terrible feuds that were to last till the 1600s - when the Manchus of China invited to help one Mongol clan, took advantage of the situation and grabbed power in Mongolia. The country now became a part of the Chinese Empire and remained a vassal state for the next three centuries. Any and every regional aspirations were ruthlessly crushed during the 1800s, till the Mongols were pushed into an all out rebellion in 1911. That won one concession from the Chinese, a theocratic government was allowed to govern Mongolia as an autonomous part of China.

For Mongolia, the early years of the 20th century were a time of turmoil, with both the  regional powers of China and Russia squabbling for control of it. By 1921, with the help of the newly formed USSR, Mongolia won its freedom from China and with a Communist Government in situ, became the second communist country in history.

The seventy years following independence were largely marked by the eradication of all that was 'anti-communist’ by the Communist regime; a religious purge ensured the execution of thousands of monks and the complete obliteration of any religious institutions. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s found communism in Mongolia faltering, weakening  and eventually overthrown. Modern Mongolia is a democracy, trying hard to catch up with the rest of Asia in terms of development, progress and modernisation.