Mongols, a great Asiatic people having their original home on the plains E. of Lake Baikal, Siberia, who first rose into prominence under their ruler Genghis Khan in the 12th century; he, uniting the three branches of Mongols, commenced a career of conquest which made him master of all Central Asia; his sons divided his empire, and pursued his conquests; a Mongol emperor seized the throne of China in 1234, and from this branch sprang the great Kublai Khan, whose house ruled an immense territory 1294-1368. Another section pushed westwards as far as Moravia and Hungary, taking Pesth in 1241, and founded the immense empire over which Tamerlane held sway. A third but later movement, springing from the ruins of these earlier empires, was that of Baber, who conquered India, and founded the Great Mogul line, 1519. Now Mongols are constituent elements in the populations of China, Russian, and Turkish Asia.