THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Late Middle Ages

Timur's Storm

The world in 1400

In 1400 the conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) is the terror of Asia. From his capital Samarkand he has rebuilt a Mongol-style empire across Iran and Central Asia, sacked Delhi in 1398, and is now invading Syria; in 1402 he will crush the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I at Ankara.

The Black Death, which struck in the 1340s, has killed perhaps a third of the population of Europe and the Middle East, and societies are still recovering. Mongol rule in China ended in 1368 with the founding of the Ming dynasty, now gripped by civil war between the young Jianwen Emperor and his uncle, the future Yongle Emperor. The Ottomans have conquered most of the Balkans and surround Constantinople. In Europe, the Hundred Years' War between England and France is paused, and the Church is split between rival popes. New powers are rising elsewhere: Vijayanagara in South India, Joseon in Korea, Ayutthaya in Thailand, and the Aztecs, still a minor people, in Mexico.

Open the map in 1400

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

Great Zimbabwe is at the height of its power, though it will decline in the next half-century as power shifts to Mutapa in the north. The Kingdom of Kongo is being founded (c. 1390s) south of the Congo River, and Kilwa and other Swahili city-states trade gold and ivory across the Indian Ocean. Malagasy kingdoms rule Madagascar.

Northern Africa

The Mamluk Sultanate rules Egypt and Syria under al-Nasir Faraj, who is about to lose Damascus to Timur. The Hafsids rule Tunisia and the Marinids Morocco, and Ethiopia under Dawit I is a strong Christian kingdom. In West Africa the Mali Empire is still vast but weakening, Songhay at Gao is gaining independence, the Sayfawa kings have moved from Kanem to Bornu, and Benin and Ife are flourishing forest kingdoms.

Europe

Margaret I rules Denmark, Norway and Sweden through the Kalmar Union (1397), and Poland and Lithuania are united under Władysław II Jagiełło. Henry IV has just seized the English throne from Richard II, Charles VI rules France despite bouts of madness, and the Holy Roman Empire deposes Wenceslaus and elects Rupert in 1400. The Ottoman Empire under Bayezid I rules most of the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire is reduced to Constantinople and a few territories, Vasily I rules Moscow, and the Golden Horde still demands tribute from the Rus.

Middle East & South Asia

Timur's empire covers Iran, Iraq and the Caucasus, and he is invading Syria in 1400–1401, while the Ottomans hold western and central Anatolia and Turkmen confederations such as the Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu control eastern Anatolia. In India, the Delhi Sultanate under Nasir-ud-din Mahmud Shah Tughluq has been shattered by Timur's sack of Delhi, and provinces such as Jaunpur and Gujarat are breaking away. In the south, the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire under Harihara II and the Muslim Bahmani Sultanate compete for the Deccan.

Northern & Central Asia

Timur rules Transoxiana from Samarkand, which he is filling with magnificent mosques and palaces. The Golden Horde, reunited by Tokhtamysh but shattered by Timur's invasions in the 1390s, is ruled by Khan Shadi Beg under the warlord Edigu, who defeated the Lithuanians at the Vorskla River in 1399. Moghulistan, the eastern remnant of the Chagatai Khanate, holds the Tian Shan, and Oirat Mongols are rising in the west of Mongolia.

East Asia

The Ming dynasty rules China from Nanjing under the Jianwen Emperor (r. 1398–1402), but his uncle Zhu Di, Prince of Yan, has rebelled and will seize the throne in 1402 as the Yongle Emperor. The Northern Yuan Mongols hold Mongolia, and Tibet is ruled by the Phagmodrupa dynasty. In Korea the new Joseon dynasty, founded in 1392, sees Taejong take the throne in 1400, and Japan is under the Ashikaga shoguns, with the retired shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu holding real power.

Southeast Asia

Ayutthaya, founded in 1351, is now the leading Thai kingdom, and the Khmer capital Angkor is weakened by its attacks. Majapahit, under Wikramawardhana, still claims much of the Indonesian archipelago, and Malacca is being founded (c. 1400) by Parameswara, a prince from Sumatra. In Burma, Ava and Hanthawaddy are fighting the Forty Years' War, and in Vietnam Hồ Quý Ly overthrows the Trần dynasty in 1400.

Northern North America

Thule Inuit live across the Arctic from Alaska to Greenland. The Norse Greenland colony is dying out in a cooling climate; its last written record is a wedding in 1408. Athabaskan, Algonquian, Innu and Beothuk peoples live in the subarctic, and Iroquoian farmers build palisaded villages around the Great Lakes.

Southern North America

In the Valley of Mexico, the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, under Huitzilihuitl, are vassals of the powerful Tepanec kingdom of Azcapotzalco. The Purépecha (Tarascan) state rules western Mexico, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs hold Oaxaca, and Mayapan still leads Yucatán. Cahokia has been abandoned, but Mississippian chiefdoms remain in the Southeast, and Pueblo peoples live along the Rio Grande.

Northern South America

The Chimú kingdom rules over 1,000 km of Peru's coast, the Aymara kingdoms hold the Titicaca basin, and the Inca, under Viracocha Inca, are expanding from Cusco, though their great conquests begin under Pachacuti from 1438. The Muisca rule the Colombian highlands, and Tupi and Arawak peoples live along the coasts and rivers.

Southern Cone

Diaguita farmers live in northwest Argentina, Mapuche in central Chile, and Guarani in Paraguay and southern Brazil. Hunter-gatherers roam the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in Tierra del Fuego; the Inca will reach Chile and Argentina within a century.

Australasia & Oceania

Māori tribes have settled across New Zealand. The Tu'i Tonga maritime chiefdom is at its peak, Rapa Nui islanders are carving and raising moai, and Hawaii has complex chiefdoms. Aboriginal Australians live across the continent, as they have for millennia.

Events

  1. Black Death reaches Europe
  2. Ming dynasty founded; Yuan expelled from China
  3. Timur proclaimed ruler at Balkh, making Samarkand his capital
  4. Joseon dynasty founded in Korea
  5. Ottomans defeat a crusade at Nicopolis
  6. Kalmar Union unites the Scandinavian kingdoms
  7. Timur sacks Delhi
  8. Timur defeats Bayezid I at Ankara

Moments of this period

Wars of this period

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Sources