During the High Middle Ages up until the 1340s, the relatively large European population continued to slowly increase over the course of a few centuries.  The Black Death of the 1340s and early 1350s resulted in a massive demographic collapse, followed by slow but steady growth amongst a much smaller population during the 1400s.

The Toltec civilization existed in modern-day Mexico between approximately 900-1100 C.E. Much of what we know comes from recent architectural digs, but also from the Aztecs who saw the Toltecs as their cultural predecessors. They are famous for the construction of pyramids, much like those used by the Mayans and Aztecs.

The Vikings were seafaring warriors, traders, and settlers who were widely influential from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries. The longship was developed by the Vikings in the ninth century and was instrumental in allowing the Vikings to traverse long distances at icy northern latitudes. It allowed the Vikings to cross the Atlantic and establish colonies in Greenland and North America in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

The Moors were North African Muslims who had conquered the Iberian Peninsula in the 800s. Religious conflict with the Christian powers of Europe led to frequent conflicts, with their loss of regional power in 1492 with the fall of Grenada, and the full elimination of Muslims from Spain in 1609.

Although some historians theorize that Zheng He might have eventually made a voyage across the vast Pacific Ocean, to the New World, this is merely conjecture. The voyages of Zheng He, and his fleet, were primarily conducted in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. He did reach such distant places as the Swahili city-states of East Africa and Red Sea.

Al-Andalus is the name given to Islamic Spain. After the initial expansion of Islam, under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates in the seventh and eighth centuries, much of the Iberian peninsula (modern-day Spain and Portugal) was under the control of Islam. This region was called Al-Andalus and was under almost complete control of the Umayyad dynasty until the tenth century. Islamic control over parts of Spain would persist until the fifteenth century.

The Anasazi are a Native American people who lived in the southwest of the modern-day United States during the pre-Columbian era. They are most notable for the elaborate dwellings, called pueblos, that they built in caves and on the plains.

The construction of the Grand Canal, by the Sui Dynasty in the seventh century, directly and expediently linked the economies of northern and southern China for the first time in Chinese history. It facilitated the movement of goods and people, aided military movement in times of civil conflict, and allowed ideas to spread more rapidly around Chinese society.

During the Early Middle Ages, urbanization was most pronounced in China (and southeast Asia), the Middle East (and the Indian subcontinent), and the Swahili city-states of East Africa. Europe and the Americas were much less urbanized. China was the probably the most urbanized society in the world at this time and many of the most populous cities were located in East Asia.

The Zapotecs (500 BCE - 700 CE) and the Toltecs (800 - 1100 CE) are two civilizations that emerged in modern-day Mexico. The Zapotecs were briefly contemporaries of the Olmecs, and for a longer time, the Maya.