Sartuul

According to Mongolia’s 2015 Interim Population and Housing Census, 2 166 people self-identified as Sartuul, up from 1 286 in the 2010 full census.{{cite book |title=2015 Interim Population and Housing Census – Consolidated Results |publisher=National Statistics Office of Mongolia |location=Ulaanbaatar |year=2016 |page=2}}

A 2018 report by the state news agency MONTSAME notes that Sartuul households are concentrated in eleven soums of Zavkhan Province, where local officials recognise them as a distinct cultural group.{{cite news |last=Batchimeg |first=B. |title=Historical study works of Sartuul clan handed over |agency=Montsame |date=12 March 2018 |url=https://montsame.mn/en/read/133974 |access-date=23 May 2025}}

A tourist ethnography compiled by *Mongolia-Guide* adds that smaller Sartuul communities exist in seven other provinces and twenty-four soums nationwide.{{cite web |title=Sartuul |url=https://mongolia-guide.com/about-mongolia/ethic-group/sartuul |website=Mongolia-Guide |access-date=23 May 2025}}

Much of the clan’s internal history is preserved in the three-volume chronicle Sart Gol Tsetsen Vangiin Shashdir Orshvoi (“Treatise on the Sart River Wise Prince’s Banner”), published in 2017 and deposited in the National Archives of Mongolia. The set is accompanied by a 32-metre genealogical scroll listing more than 4 000 individuals and tracing the banner’s ruling line over thirty generations to Genghis Khan.{{cite book |last=Purevdorj |first=Galsantseren |title=Сарт гол Цэцэн вангийн хошууны шастир оршвой [History of the Sart River Wise Prince’s Banner] |publisher=Мөнхийн Үсэг |location=Ulaanbaatar |year=2017 |isbn=978-99978-8700-9}}

French sinologist Paul Pelliot linked the ethnonym Sartuul to the Turkic term sart (ultimately from Sanskrit sarṭha, “merchant”), suggesting that the clan descends from Muslim traders resettled in Mongolia after the early-13th-century Khwārazm campaign.{{cite journal |last=Pelliot |first=Paul |title=Notes on the term “Sart” and its Mongolian derivatives |journal=Central Asiatic Journal |volume=4 |year=1959 |pages=101–112}} A 2019 philological survey of Sino-Mongol bilingual glossaries observes that sarṭ- retained the sense “merchant” until at least the 11th century before shifting toward “town-dweller” in Turkic languages, supporting Pelliot’s derivation.{{cite journal |last=Apatóczky |first=Ákos Bertalan |title=Ethnonyms along the Silk Road as recorded in Sino-Mongol bilingual sources |journal=Central Asiatic Journal |volume=62 |year=2019 |pages=716–717}}

The 13-century chronicle The Secret History of the Mongols regularly uses the ethnonym Sarta’ul to denote the Muslim townsfolk of Khwarazm and neighbouring regions of Central Asia. In §104 it places the **Qara-Khitai** realm “*in the land of the Sarta’ul at the Cui River*”.{{cite book |last=Cleaves |first=Francis Woodman |title=The Secret History of the Mongols |volume=I |publisher=Harvard-Yenching Institute |location=Cambridge, MA |year=1982 |page=104 |quote=…went unto the Gǔr Qan of the Qara Khitai, **in the land of the Sarta’ul** at the Cui River.}}

Later, when recounting Chinggis Khan’s Khwarazmian campaign, the chronicle records:

• **§254** – “*After that, one hundred of Chinggis Qahan’s emissaries … were killed by the Sarta’ul people. Chinggis Qahan said: ‘How can my golden tether be broken by the Sarta’ul people?’*”
• **§257** – “*In the year of the Hare [1219] he set forth against the Sarta’ul people…*”
• **§264** – “*[He] went seven years in the country of the Sarta’ul people…*”

{{cite book |last=Cleaves |first=Francis Woodman |title=The Secret History of the Mongols |volume=I |publisher=Harvard-Yenching Institute |location=Cambridge, MA |year=1982 |pages=240–253}}

These passages show that, for the Mongols themselves, **Sarta’ul** was a standard label for the Khwarazmian (and more generally Muslim) populations they encountered, supporting the modern derivation of *Sartuul* from *sart* “merchant / town-dweller”.

• List of modern Mongol clans
• List of medieval Mongol tribes and clans

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