Sartuul () is one of the Mongol clans. A common hypothesis is the origin of the Sartuuls from the Sarts. Another hypothesis is the version that traces the origin of the Sartuuls to an area called Sarta Uula (Moon Mountain) or Sart Uul (Mountain with the Moon), the name of a mountain where they live. During the Chinese Qing dynasty rule, there was a banner named Tsetsen Sartuul's hoshuu (Wise Sartuul's banner) and descendants of the banner began to use its name as a clan name when Mongolians began using their ancestors' clan names after 1990.
9 khutagts of Khalkha and 2 presidents of Mongolia are from the Tsetsen Sartuul's hoshuu.
According to MongoliaâÂÂs 2015 Interim Population and Housing Census, 2 166 people self-identified as Sartuul, up from 1 286 in the 2010 full census.
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. A tourist ethnography compiled by *Mongolia-Guide* adds that smaller Sartuul communities exist in seven other provinces and twenty-four soums nationwide.
Much of the clanâÂÂs internal history is preserved in the three-volume chronicle Sart Gol Tsetsen Vangiin Shashdir Orshvoi (âÂÂTreatise on the Sart River Wise PrinceâÂÂs BannerâÂÂ), 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 bannerâÂÂs ruling line over thirty generations to Genghis Khan.
French sinologist Paul Pelliot linked the ethnonym Sartuul to the Turkic term sart (ultimately from Sanskrit sará¹Âha, âÂÂmerchantâÂÂ), suggesting that the clan descends from Muslim traders resettled in Mongolia after the early-13th-century KhwÃÂrazm campaign. A 2019 philological survey of Sino-Mongol bilingual glossaries observes that sará¹Â- retained the sense âÂÂmerchantâ until at least the 11th century before shifting toward âÂÂtown-dwellerâ in Turkic languages, supporting PelliotâÂÂs derivation.
The 13-century chronicle The Secret History of the Mongols regularly uses the ethnonym SartaâÂÂul to denote the Muslim townsfolk of Khwarazm and neighbouring regions of Central Asia. In ç104 it places the **Qara-Khitai** realm âÂÂ*in the land of the SartaâÂÂul at the Cui River*âÂÂ.
Later, when recounting Chinggis KhanâÂÂs Khwarazmian campaign, the chronicle records:
These passages show that, for the Mongols themselves, **SartaâÂÂul** was a standard label for the Khwarazmian (and more generally Muslim) populations they encountered, supporting the modern derivation of *Sartuul* from *sart* âÂÂmerchant / town-dwellerâÂÂ.