Mongolia
The land of Genghis Khan, vast steppe and the Gobi Desert
Mongolia is the most sparsely populated sovereign nation on Earth, a landlocked expanse of steppe, desert, and mountain wedged between Russia and China where there are more horses than people in many provinces. Half its citizens still herd livestock across open grassland, and the felt ger remains a living home rather than a museum piece. This is the homeland of Genghis Khan, who launched from these plains the largest contiguous land empire in history. Today Mongolia balances that nomadic heritage against a mining boom that is reshaping its economy and its capital, Ulaanbaatar.
The landscape rises from the southern Gobi Desert, a vast cold desert of gravel plains and dunes, to the forested Khangai and the glaciated Altai Mountains in the west, where the highest point, Khuiten Peak, reaches 4,374 meters. Much of the country is high, rolling steppe, and the climate is extreme and continental, with brutally cold winters and short hot summers. Periodic disasters called dzud, in which deep snow and cold kill livestock en masse, threaten the herding way of life. Lakes, larches, and the headwaters of Siberian rivers mark the north.
United by Genghis Khan around 1206, the Mongol Empire under him and his heirs stretched from Korea to Eastern Europe. Mongolia later fell under Manchu Qing rule, then became, in 1924, the world's second communist state, closely tied to the Soviet Union. A peaceful democratic revolution in 1990 ended one-party rule, and the country has since been a functioning democracy. Its economy now rests heavily on copper, coal, and gold, especially the giant Oyu Tolgoi mine, while throat singing, the eagle hunters of the Kazakh minority, and the summer Naadam festival sustain a vivid traditional culture.