Mongolia Map

A high plateau between Russia and China

Mongolia covers 1,564,116 square kilometers, making it the world's second-largest landlocked country after Kazakhstan, but has only about 3.5 million people (UN World Population Prospects, 2025 estimate). At just over two people per square kilometer it is the most sparsely populated sovereign state on Earth. It has only two neighbours: Russia to the north and China to the south, including China's Inner Mongolia region. At its far western tip it comes within about 37 kilometers of Kazakhstan. Most of the country sits on a plateau averaging around 1,500 meters above sea level. The Trans-Mongolian Railway, running from Russia's Ulan-Ude through Ulaanbaatar to the Chinese border at Zamyn-Üüd, carries most of its trade, and the nearest seaport is Tianjin in China.

Altai, Khangai and the Gobi

The Mongolian Altai runs along the western border and holds the highest point, Khüiten Peak (4,374 meters), in the glaciated Tavan Bogd massif where Mongolia, Russia and China meet. Between the Altai and the Khangai Mountains of central Mongolia lies the Great Lakes Depression, with large saline lakes such as Uvs Nuur. In the north, Lake Khövsgöl, at about 1,645 meters, holds around 70 percent of the country's fresh water. The Selenge River drains north into Russia's Lake Baikal, while the Onon and Kherlen rivers rise in the Khentii Mountains northeast of the capital, the homeland of Genghis Khan. The eastern third of the country is open grassland, where Mongolian gazelles still migrate in large herds.

The south is the Gobi, which extends into China. It is mostly gravel plain and scrub rather than sand, although the Khongoryn Els dunes run for about 100 kilometers. At the Flaming Cliffs (Bayanzag), an American expedition found the first scientifically recognized dinosaur eggs in 1923. See the deserts of Asia for how the Gobi compares with its neighbours.

Long winters, short summers

Mongolia has an extreme continental climate and plenty of sun. Ulaanbaatar is the coldest national capital in the world: its January average is below -20°C and its annual mean is close to freezing. Most of the limited rain falls in July and August. A dzud, a summer drought followed by a severe winter, can kill millions of livestock, as happened in 2023-2024. The best time to visit is June to September; the national Naadam festival of wrestling, horse racing and archery is held on 11-13 July. Winter brings heavy smog to Ulaanbaatar, where many households in the ger districts heat their homes with coal.

Aimags and cities

The country is divided into 21 provinces (aimags), which are subdivided into soums, plus the capital municipality. Ulaanbaatar has about 1.6 million people (UN urban-area estimate for 2025), close to half of all Mongolians. It began in 1639 as a mobile monastic camp and settled on the Tuul River in 1778. Other towns are small. Figures below are 2021 official estimates:

• Erdenet - About 100,000, built in the 1970s around one of Asia's largest copper mines
• Darkhan - About 85,000, an industrial town founded in 1961 on the railway north of the capital
• Choibalsan - About 47,000, the main town of the eastern steppe, on the Kherlen River
• Ölgii - About 40,000, capital of Bayan-Ölgii, the Kazakh-majority far west, known for its Golden Eagle Festival
• Khovd - About 32,000, a trading town at the foot of the Altai

Herds and mines

Herding sheep, goats, cattle, horses and camels is still a livelihood for many rural households, and Mongolia's livestock outnumber its people many times over. Mongolia is the world's second-largest producer of raw cashmere after China. Mining now dominates exports: coal from Tavan Tolgoi and copper and gold from Oyu Tolgoi, in which the government holds a 34 percent stake, go mostly to China. GDP per capita was about US$7,100 in 2025 (World Bank).

From empire to democracy

Temüjin was proclaimed Genghis Khan in 1206, and the empire he founded became the largest contiguous land empire in history. Mongolia later came under the Qing dynasty, declared independence when the Qing collapsed in 1911, and after a Soviet-backed revolution in 1921 became the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924, the world's second communist state. Inner Mongolia stayed with China. Peaceful protests in 1990 brought multiparty elections, and the 1992 constitution created today's parliamentary system with an elected president. Tibetan Buddhism, suppressed in the 1930s, has revived since 1990. Mongolian has been written in Cyrillic since the 1940s, and the government is bringing the traditional vertical script back into official use.