Marco Polo Reaches Kublai Khan's Court
A teenage Venetian merchant spends seventeen years serving the Mongol emperor of China
Quick facts
- Departed Venice
- 1271, age 17
- Arrived at Kublai's court
- c. 1275
- Years in China
- 17 years
- Returned to Venice
- 1295
What happened
Marco Polo, born into a Venetian merchant family in 1254, set out at age 17 in 1271 with his father and uncle on their second journey to East Asia, reaching the court of Kublai Khan around 1275. The World History Encyclopedia notes Kublai appointed Marco a permanent, roving envoy, in keeping with the khan's policy of avoiding reliance on Chinese officials where possible. The Polos stayed 17 years, finally leaving China in 1292 by escorting a Mongol princess to Persia, and reached Venice in 1295, a year after Kublai's death. Marco's account, later dictated in prison and known as The Travels of Marco Polo, described Xanadu, paper currency, and the empire's postal relay system in detail unmatched by any other European writer of the period.
Why it matters
Marco Polo's account became Europe's most influential written source on Mongol China, shaping European expectations of Asia for centuries even though modern scholars debate how much he personally saw versus recorded secondhand. His description of paper money and the postal system introduced European readers to Mongol administrative innovations they had no equivalent for at home.
How we know
Marco Polo's own dictated account survives in numerous medieval manuscript copies; the World History Encyclopedia's biography draws directly from it and from modern scholarly assessment of its reliability.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Marco Polo · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Marco Polo · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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