Ibn Battuta vs Marco Polo
How do Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo compare? Here is a side-by-side look at their lives, achievements and historical impact.
| Ibn Battuta | Marco Polo | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifespan | 1304 – 1369 | 1254 – 1324 |
| Born | Tangier, Morocco | Venice, Republic of Venice |
| Occupation | Explorer, Traveller, Scholar | Explorer, Merchant, Writer |
| Known for | The Rihla, Travels across the Islamic world, Journey to China | The Travels of Marco Polo, Journey to Yuan China, Silk Road travel, Court of Kublai Khan |
| Fields | — | — |
| Influence score | 78/100 | 84/100 |
Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta was a Moroccan scholar and traveller of the 14th century who journeyed some 75,000 miles across Africa, the Middle East, India, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China — one of the greatest travellers of the pre-modern world.
Full biography →Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant and explorer whose travels across Asia to the court of Kublai Khan, recorded in The Travels of Marco Polo, gave medieval Europe its most influential account of the East.
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Mansa Musa
82Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire at its height in the 14th century, remembered as one of the wealthiest individuals in history and famed for a lavish pilgrimage to Mecca that announced West Africa's riches to the world.
Why Ibn Battuta visited the Mali Empire that Mansa Musa had ruled, and described it.
Ibn Khaldun
80Ibn Khaldun was a North African scholar of the 14th century widely regarded as a founder of historiography, sociology and economics, whose Muqaddimah pioneered the analytical study of how societies rise and fall.
Why A fellow North African scholar of the same century who also recorded the Islamic world.
Rumi
81Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic whose ecstatic verse on divine love became some of the most beloved poetry in the world and made him, centuries later, one of the most widely read poets in the West.
Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact
Christopher Columbus
85Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who, sailing for Spain in 1492, opened sustained European contact with the Americas — a voyage of immense and deeply controversial consequence.
Why A later explorer who carried and annotated a copy of Marco Polo's Travels while seeking a sea route to the East.
Genghis Khan
93Genghis Khan was the founder and first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, a military genius who united the nomadic tribes of the steppe and forged the largest contiguous land empire in history.
Why Founder of the Mongol Empire whose grandson Kublai Khan hosted Marco Polo.
Zheng He
83Zheng He was a Chinese admiral and explorer of the Ming dynasty who commanded vast treasure fleets on seven voyages across the Indian Ocean, reaching as far as Arabia and East Africa.
Why A Chinese admiral whose later voyages similarly bridged distant civilizations across Asia and the Indian Ocean.