The Mongol administrative unit that served as a territory or appanage for a prince was an ulus. The word could mean a people, tribal grouping, realm, or patrimony, depending on context, but in the Mongol imperial system it often referred to a prince’s allotted domain and its dependent population.
After Genghis Khan unified the Mongols, he distributed lands, peoples, and revenue rights among members of his family and trusted commanders. These appanages were not always sharply bounded provinces in the modern sense. They could include pasturelands, towns, tribute-paying populations, military obligations, and the authority to govern particular groups.
Several later Mongol states were identified as uluses. The Golden Horde, for example, was known in Mongol usage as the Ulus of Jochi, reflecting its origin as the patrimony assigned to Jochi, Genghis Khan’s eldest son. The term is sometimes confused with tumen, a military and administrative unit of roughly ten thousand, or ordo, the camp and court of a ruler.