Eastern Asia
Steppe · Nomadic · Sky
Mongolia is a country located in Eastern Asia. Its capital city is Ulaanbaatar, with other major cities including Erdenet and Darkhan. With a population of approximately 3.4M, the main language spoken is Mongolian. The country covers an area of 1,564,110 km². The official currency is the Mongolian tögrög (₮). Traffic drives on the right side.
Mongolia is the world's least densely populated sovereign country — it has the size of Western Europe but fewer than 3.5 million people, roughly two per square kilometre.
Ulaanbaatar serves as the political, cultural and economic heart of Mongolia, positioned in Eastern Asia. As the seat of government and often the most populous city, it concentrates the country's main institutions, universities and cultural landmarks. Beyond the capital, major cities include Erdenet, Darkhan — each a hub of regional culture, economy and history. Ulaanbaatar expanded from a nomadic moveable capital (it changed location 28 times before settling permanently in 1778) into a fixed city of 1.5 million people — nearly half the country's population — whose Soviet-era apartment blocks are surrounded by ger (yurt) districts where nomadic families who have migrated to the city maintain circular felt homes in urban lots without running water or central heating.
With a population of approximately 3.4M, Mongolia is a vibrant society with a rich mix of traditions and communities. The official language is Mongolian, which reflects the country's cultural heritage and connects it with a wide international community. Internationally, Mongolia is reached via the dialling code +976. Mongolians maintain a nomadic pastoral heritage as a living practice — 30% of the population still lives as nomadic herders with their 56 million livestock (almost 20 per person) moving across pastureland with the seasons — while the Genghis Khan (Chinggis Khan) cult functions as a national founding mythology, his portrait on currency and his name on the airport of the country whose ancestor his empire was.
Mongolia spans 1,564,110 km², in the Eastern Asia subregion of Asia. Geographically centred around 46.0°N, 105.0°E, the country offers a diverse range of landscapes shaped by its location, climate and geology. Road traffic follows the right-hand rule, in line with surrounding Asia convention.
The official currency is the Mongolian tögrög (₮), used for everyday transactions and commerce throughout the country. Mongolia's economy is shaped by its geography, natural resources and trade relationships. Business and daily life operate under UTC+07:00, aligning the country with its regional neighbours.
Wrestling / Archery / Horse Racing holds a special place in the heart of Mongolia's national identity. The Three Manly Games of Naadam — horse racing (by child jockeys on multi-kilometre courses), wrestling (Mongolian Bökh, where the loser is the first to touch the ground with any body part other than feet and hands), and archery (using a composite bow whose design has not changed in 700 years) — are celebrated at the July national festival as the athletic expressions of Mongol identity.
The highest point in Mongolia is Khüiten Peak, rising to 4,374 metres above sea level. The Gobi Desert covers southern Mongolia in a landscape of vast stony plains (not the sandy dunes of popular imagination — 90% of the Gobi is rock, not sand) where Bactrian camels, Gobi bears (the world's rarest bear), and snow leopards survive in extreme temperature ranges (from -40°C in winter to +45°C in summer) that make the Gobi one of the world's harshest inhabited environments.