Geography

One of the largest land-locked countries in the world, Mongolia is situated in eastern Central Asia. Russia and China are its direct neighbours sharing a border with Mongolia.

North & north-west Mongolia borders Russia (Siberia) and in the south and east, China. The country is 4,5 times as large as Germany and as such is as large as Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, France, Benelux countries, Denmark and Italy combined.

Interestingly, Berlin is home to more residents than Mongolia is to Mongolians; no country on the planet is as thinly populated. The rapidly growing capital Ulaanbaatar, clearly the focal point of the country, hosts 50% of the country’s population.

In Ulaanbaatar beats the pulse of the country, formed and re-formed through its heritage and a perpetual ‘eye’ on the future.

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Highlands

Mongolia presents a quintessential plateau with desert and steppe-like character. Close to 85% of the country is over 1000 meters above sea level. Nearly one-third of the country’s terrain consists of high-altitude mountains, especially in the north, west, and south-east regions. The southern and eastern regions are notable for their arid elevated plains. With an average altitude of 1580 meters, Mongolia is among those rare countries with the highest altitudes on earth. Two-thirds of the country is dominated by the Changai mountain range (528.000 sq. kms), the Mongolian Altai (250.000 sq. kms) and the Gobi-Altai.

 

Climate

With its location in the central Asian highlands Mongolia endures the most extreme climate among the continents as well as the most arid climate in the world.

As a result of the predominantly dry climate throughout the year, variances in temperatures are two to three times more pronounced than in western Europe.

 

Economy

The most prominent branches of the economy are diverse; nomadic livestock farming on the one hand and mining on the other. The country is among the ten richest, possessing deposits of rare earth minerals, as well as copper, coal, tin and gold.

 

 

History

The Mongolian Empire was established in 1206 by Genghis Khan. It extended across Asia to Europe and accounted was the largest empire in the history of mankind at that time.

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Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, formed the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) in China. During this period he placed Buddhist monks in charge of Tibet.

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Long after the collapse of the empire, Buddhism became the official religion of Tibet on the direction of the Buddhist monks. The province of Outer Mongolia came about during the Qing Dynasty in 1644. This area is recognized today as the country of Mongolia.

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As of 1915 the region became autonomous through a treaty with Russia and China. In 1921 a puppet government was set up by the Russians and in 1924 it was proclaimed the Mongolian People’s Republic. Their dependency in political, military and economic terms were then squarely in the hands of the USSR.

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In 1989, through peaceful national revolutions a democratic parliamentarian system of government was formed in Mongolia. The parliament instituted a new constitution on 12 February 1992 thus ending communist rule. Simultaneously the constitutional powers of the new state of Mongolia relinquished the title of ‘Peoples Republic’.

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The term, ‘outer Mongolia’ encompasses todays independent state of Mongolia, while ‘inner Mongolia’ represents an autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China.