The old capital of Chinggis Khaan's empire
In the 13th century Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire, where envoys from Europe and Asia came to meet the Great Khan. Little of the city survives, but Erdene Zuu Monastery, founded in the 16th century partly with its stones, stands within a wall topped by 108 white stupas. A museum displays finds from the old capital. The monastery lies in the Orkhon Valley, a UNESCO-listed cultural landscape of grassland where nomadic herding has continued for thousands of years, with the Orkhon waterfall upstream.