Mughal emperors

The Mughal emperors were a branch of the Timurid dynasty. From the early 16th century to the early 18th they built and ruled the Mughal Empire on the Indian subcontinent, mainly corresponding to the modern countries of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Their power rapidly dwindled during the 18th century and the last of the emperors was deposed in 1857, with the establishment of the British Raj. The dynasty was of central Asian Turco-Mongol origin from an area now part of modern-day Uzbekistan, and the emperors claimed direct descent from both Timur and Genghis Khan, through his son Chagatai Khan.

At their empire's greatest extent in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, they controlled much of the Indian subcontinent, extending from Bengal in the east to Kabul and Sindh in the west, Kashmir in the north to the Kaveri basin in the south. Its population at the time has been estimated as between 110 and 150 million (a quarter of the world's population), over a territory of more than 3.2 million square kilometres (1.2 million square miles).