How many children does Genghis Khan had according to historians?
There are estimated to be 560 or so documented children across the world with Genghis Khan as their legitimate father. Leading towards 1200 years later where one can infer from modern DNA testing that a child has more than likely been fathered by Genghis Khan for testing to have taken place.
With a population of around 12 million at the time of his death, an estimate based on these recorded facts means there was roughly 0.4% chance that every Mongolian male, even ones you would not traditionally expect to produce offspring, were not fathered by Genghis Khan.
Genghis Khan’s empire was surprisingly quite large for the time it span. However, we do not know how many children he had as records from that era are not reliable.
His empire spanned most of China and all but the eastern seaboard of India, so it is unlikely there is anyone left alive today who would have contact with living descendants and can answer this question. It does help to remember that Genghis occupied a startlingly large area of land during his reign–more than 30 million square kilometers or 10 million square miles–larger geographically than all of Europe at the time.
Genghis Khan had twenty-one children.
The first nine of his wives were Khitan non-Han women who are not known by name. The last twelve wives, many of them Mongol queens and princesses, are very well documented in history. Not all sons and daughters can be confirmed as offspring. Some reports imply that the figure could have ranged between eight to 12 although modern historians tend to favour a narrower range of 21 born son/daughter per 45 years (11 male, 10 female).
Approximately 40.
Total: When Genghis Khan died, he had about 4,000 children and 500 living grandchildren. Without including his offspring’s offspring (approximately 5 million people), he has over 8 million descendants alive today.
Mongol Emperors were supposed to mate with hundreds of women and their sons were made Imperial Princes; it was through these titles that the Mongol Empire expanded from a tribal empire to an emerging mighty dynasty in just over 100 years under Genghis’ leadership. He lived during the 13th century AD when Europe suffered recurrent famines because of climate change after the Little Ice Age–which killed 10% of this population every 20-30 years or more frequently if famine struck
13 sons and 16 daughters.
Some sources cite 10 children by four wives. It is not clear which of several competing Galician, Mongolian, Persian and Arabic versions of the Secret History of the Mongols is definitive. The most detailed version – from a manuscript called “The Differences Between Nations”, believed to have been written during Khan’s lifetime by a Buddhist monk in Mongolia – confirms the 24 names but claims more are not yet recorded because they were still in their cradles when he died in 1227 C.E.
The reality is that there’s no way of knowing for sure how many children he produced because they all lived so long ago and records weren’t kept back then. Estimates have varied from 800 to 600 the “official” number is 21 but that could be disputed since it’s impossible to know for sure.
According to historians, Genghis Khan is known to have had his first wife Börte with whom he had four daughters and two sons. With his second wife, Tolui’s mother Sorqaqtani, they had eight children, three daughters and five sons.
Historians disagree on how many children Genghis Khan had. There is no surviving record of any kind to either confirm or disprove the numbers. Most historians cite his son Tolui as the father of 20-22 sons, and this number is popular because it gives credit for about one in three babies born at that time being fathered by Genghis Khan. To put this into perspective, modern DNA testing has estimated that Henry VIII was the father of eight pregnancies which would be approximately 1 in 16 pregnancies (6%). So a reasonable estimate for Genghis Khan from modern genetics would be something like a quarter, even if all his sons were illegitimate and he never had sex with anyone other than him wife while he was married
Genghis Khan is believed to have had with many women, and the number of sons and daughters for Genghis Khan is unknown.
The legendary figure has been an object of fascination in Western culture since his first mention in 1226 by a Franciscan friar who met people from Asia who spoke about such a man. In traditional Asian cultures different scholars compiled lists claiming that he had over 140 children from those marriages and concubines.
There is an estimated of 1.125 million documented descendants of Genghis Khan according to one historian, but no other estimates are given by historians for how many children he might have had. Most estimate also size his harem at about 70-124 women. On the other hand, the Mongol Empire covered parts of Asia and Eastern Europe and some territory in Western Europe as well, so it’s possible that Khan could have descendants numbering into the tens or hundreds of millions if any or all of these are considered (since any person living outside this region is unlikely to be a descendant). He would also be directly responsible for about 35% – 40% of all those who live today if they count only those descended from his two sons
