Mongolia - The Beautiful Land of Beautiful People
Mongolia - Information at Wikipedia
Mongolia
At 1,564,116 square kilometers, Mongolia is the 19th largest, and the most sparsely populated independent country in the world with a population of around 2.9 million people. Approximately 30% of the country's 2.9 million people are nomadic or semi-nomadic. Mongolia borders Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Ulaanbaatar (Ulan Bator) is the capital and largest city, and is home to about 38% of the population.
Mongolia is a landlocked (wholly / nearly enclosed by land) country in East and Central Asia. The country contains very little arable land, as much of its area is covered by arid and unproductive steppes, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south.
The area of what is now Mongolia had been occupied and ruled by various nomadic Mongol tribes before they came under control of Chinggis Khaan, whom the Washington Post in 1992 declared the Man of the Millenium. Under Chinggis Khaan's leadership, the Mongols formed the Mongol Empire in 1206 (1206 - 1368) and conquered a huge Eurasian empire, the largest contiguous land empire in world history. After his death the empire was divided into several powerful Mongol states, but these broke apart in the 14th century. The Mongols eventually retired to their original steppe homelands and in the late 17th century came under Chinese rule. Mongolia won its independence in 1921 with Soviet backing. A Communist regime was installed in 1924.
Following a peaceful democratic revolution, the ex-Communist Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) won elections in 1990 and 1992, but was defeated by the Democratic Union Coalition (DUC) in the 1996 parliamentary elections. Since then, parliamentary elections have returned the MPRP as the ruling party working with various party coalitions for control of the government. In 2008 elections, the MPRP again won, although by a narrow margin over the Democratic Party (DP).
Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic, in which the head of state usually does not have broad executive powers as an executive president would, because much of those powers are granted to a prime minister.
The predominant religion in Mongolia is Tibetan Buddhism, and the majority of the state's citizens are of the Mongol ethnicity, though Kazakhs, Tuvans and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west. The population of Mongolia consists of 85% Mongols.
Mongol Empire
In the late 12th century, a chieftain named Temüjin succeeded in uniting the Mongol tribes between Manchuria and the Altai Mountains. In 1206, he took the title Chinggis Khaan (Genghis Khan), and waged a series of military campaigns sweeping through much of Asia, forming the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire in world history. Under his successors it stretched from present-day Poland in the west to Korea in the east, and from Siberia in the north to the Gulf of Oman and Vietnam in the south, covering some 33,000,000 km² (12,741,000 sq mi), (22% of Earth's total land area) and having a population of over 100 million people.
Populatin: 2,996,081 (July 2008 est.)
Population growth rate: 1.493% (2008 est.)
Birth rate: 21.09 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Death rate: 6.16 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 28.4% (male 433,835/female 416,549)
15-64 years: 67.7% (male 1,013,215/female 1,015,221)
65 years and over: 3.9% (male 51,093/female 66,168) (2008 est.)
Sex ratio: at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.77 male(s)/female
total population: 1 male(s)/female (2008 est.)
Infant mortality rate: total: 41.24 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 44.41 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 37.92 deaths/1,000 live births (2008 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 67.32 years
male: 64.92 years
female: 69.84 years (2008 est.)
Total fertility rate: 2.24 children born/woman (2008 est.)
Ethnic groups: Mongol (mostly Khalkha) 94.9%, Turkic (mostly Kazakh) 5%, other (including Chinese and Russian) 0.1%
Languages: Khalkha Mongol (90%), Turkic, Russian
Religion: Buddhist Lamaist 50%, Shamanist and Christian 6%, Muslim 4%, none 40% (2004)