Orde - Mongol Empire

Mongol Empire

The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1911) defined orda as "a tribe or troop of Asiatic nomads dwelling in tents or wagons, and migrating from place to place to procure pasturage for their cattle, or for war or plunder."

Merriam–Webster defined horde in this context as "a political subdivision of central Asian people" or "a people or tribe of nomadic life".

Ordas would form when families settled in auls would find it impossible to survive in that area and were forced to move. Often, periods of drought would coincide with the rise in the number of ordas. Ordas were patriarchal, with its male members constituting a military. While some ordas were able to sustain themselves from their herds; others turned to pillaging their neighbors. In subsequent fighting, some ordas were destroyed, others assimilated. The most successful ones would, for a time, assimilate most or all other ordas of the Eurasian Steppe and turn to raiding neighboring political entities; those ordas often left their mark on history, the most famous of which is the Golden Horde of the later Mongol Empire.

Famous ordas (hordes) include:

• the White Horde, formed 1226
• the Blue Horde, formed 1227
• the Golden Horde, a Tatar-Mongol state established in the 1240s
• the Great Horde, remnant of the Golden Horde from about 1466 until 1502
• the Nogai Horde, a Tatar clan situated in the Caucasus Mountain region, formed in the 1390s