Description

The Mongols gained fame in the 13th century when under Chinggis KHAN they conquered a huge Eurasian empire. 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 later came under Chinese rule. Mongolia won its independence in 1921 with Soviet backing. A Communist regime was installed in 1924. 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 election. Since then, parliamentary elections returned the MPRP overwhelmingly to power in 2000 and produced a coalition government in 2004"Mongolia (Mongolian) is the largest fully landlocked country typically classified as being a part of East Asia, though it is sometimes considered as being a part of Central Asia instead. It is bordered by Russia to the north and the People's Republic of China to the south. Its capital and largest city is Ulaanbaatar.

Mongolia was the center of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century and was later ruled by China during the Manchu Qing Dynasty from the end of the seventeenth century until 1911, when an independent government was formed with Russian assistance. Following the end of the Cold War, and after the fall of communism in Mongolia in 1990, Mongolia adopted a new, democratic constitution which was ratified in 1992. This officially marked the birth of Mongolia as a democratic country, making it one of the world's youngest democracies.

At 1,564,116 square kilometers, Mongolia is the nineteenth largest country in the world. However, 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. Approximately 30 percent of the country's 2.8 million people are nomadic or semi-nomadic. The predominant religion in Mongolia is Tibetan Buddhism, and the majority of the state's citizens are of the Mongol ethnicity, though Kazakhs and Tu vans also live in the country, especially in the west. About one-third of the population lives in Ulaanbaatar.

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