MONGOLIA

MONGOLIA FLAG

MONGOLIA MAP

DESCRIPTION:

Mongolia (pronounced /mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/) (Mongolian: Монгол улс, ) is a country in East-Central Asia.The landlocked country borders Russia to the north and China to the south. The capital and largest city is Ulan Bator. Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic.
At 1,564,116 square kilometres, Mongolia is the nineteenth largest, and the least densely populated independent country in the world with a population of around 2.9 million people. It is also the world's second-largest landlocked country after Kazakhstan. 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 thirty percent of the country's 2.9 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, Tuvans, and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west. About 38% of the population lives in Ulan Bator.

HISTORY:

One of the greatest advances in human culture is the nomadic pastoralism , the adaptation by nomadic people to survival on the world's grassland by raising livestock rather than crops which are unsuitable to the terrain. Nomads currently surviving on the Tibetan Plateau and in the Himalayas are the remainders of nomadic practices once widespread in Asia and Africa.
The area of Mongolia was part of various steppe empires like those of the Hsiung-nu, Göktürks, Uighurs, and others. Mongolia became the center of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century. After the empire collapsed, Mongolia returned to the old patterns of internal strife, until the Khalkha nobles submitted to the Manchu in 1691. The country was then part of the Qing empire until 1911, when an independent Mongolian government was formed under the Bogd Khan. The Mongolian People's Republic was proclaimed in 1924, leading to the adoption of communist policies and a very close alignment to the Soviet Union. After the fall of communism in Mongolia in 1990, Mongolia adopted a new constitution which was ratified in 1992. This officially marked the transition of Mongolia to a multi-party political system.

ECONOMY:

Mongolia's economy is centered on agriculture and mining. Mongolia has rich mineral resources, and copper, coal, molybdenum, tin, tungsten, and gold account for a large part of industrial production.
There are currently over 30,000 independent businesses in Mongolia, chiefly centered around the capital city[citation needed]. The majority of the population outside urban areas participate in subsistence herding; livestock typically consists of sheep, goats, cattle, horses, and Bactrian camels. Agricultural crops include wheat, barley, vegetables, tomato, watermelon, sea-buckthorn and fodder crops. GDP per capita in 2006 was $2,100. Although GDP has risen steadily since 2002 at the rate of 7.5% in an official 2006 estimate, the state is still working to overcome a sizable trade deficit. A massive ($11 billion) foreign debt to Russia was settled by the Mongolian government in 2004 with a $250 million payment. Despite growth, the proportion of the population below the poverty line is estimated to be 35.6% in 1998, 36.1% in 2002-2003, 32.2% in 2006,and both the unemployment rate and inflation rate are relatively high at 3.2% and 6.0%, respectively (in 2006)The Mongolian Stock Exchange, established in 1991 in Ulan Bator, is the world's smallest stock exchange by market capitalisation.

EDUCATION:

During the state socialist period, education was one of the areas of significant achievement in Mongolia. Illiteracy was virtually eliminated, in part through the use of seasonal boarding schools for children of nomadic families. Funding to these boarding schools was cut in the 1990s, contributing to slightly increased illiteracy.
Primary and secondary education formerly lasted ten years, but has been expanded to eleven years recently and is set to be expanded further to twelve years.
Mongolian national universities are all spin-offs from the National University of Mongolia and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology.
The broad liberalization of the 1990s led to a boom in private institutions of higher education, although many of these establishments have difficulty living up to their name of "college" or "university".

HEALTH:

Health care in Mongolia is rapidly improving[citation needed], leading to a higher life expectancy and a drop in infant and child mortality.
Average childbirth (fertility rate) is around 2.25- 1.87per woman (2007) and average life expectancy is 67-68years. Infant mortality is at 1.9%-4% and child mortality is at 4.3%.
The health sector comprises 17 specialized hospitals and centers, 4 regional diagnostic and treatment centers, 9 district and 21 aimag general hospitals, 323 soum hospitals, 18 feldsher posts, 233 family group practices, and 536 private hospitals and 57 drug supply companies/pharmacies. In 2002 the total number of health workers was 33273, of which 6823 were doctors, 788 pharmacists, 7802-nurses and 14091 mid-level personnel. At present, there are 27.7 physicians and 75.7 hospital beds per 10.000 population overall.
GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE:

At 1,564,116 km²(603,909 mi²), Mongolia is the world's nineteenth-largest country (after Iran). It is significantly larger than the next-largest country, Peru.
The geography of Mongolia is varied with the Gobi desert to the south and with cold and mountainous regions to the north and west. Mongolia consists of relatively flat steppes. The highest point in Mongolia is the Khüiten Peak in the Tavan bogd massif in the far west at 4,374 m (14,350 feet). The basin of the lake Uvs Nuur, shared with Tuva Republic in Russia, is a natural World Heritage Site.
Most of the country is hot in the summer and extremely cold in the winter, with January averages dropping as low as -30°C (-22°F). The country is also subject to occasional harsh climatic conditions known as zud. Ulan Bator has the coldest average temperature of any national capital in the world. Mongolia is high, cold, and windy. It has an extreme continental climate with long, cold winters and short summers, during which most of its annual precipitation falls. The country averages 257 cloudless days a year, and it is usually at the center of a region of high atmospheric pressure. Precipitation is highest in the north (average of 20 to 35 centimeters per year) and lowest in the south, which receives 10 to 20 centimeters annually. The extreme south is the Gobi, some regions of which receive no precipitation at all in most years.
The name "Gobi" is a Mongol term for a desert steppe, which usually refers to a category of arid rangeland with insufficient vegetation to support marmots but with enough to support camels. Mongols distinguish Gobi from desert proper, although the distinction is not always apparent to outsiders unfamiliar with the Mongolian landscape. Gobi rangelands are fragile and are easily destroyed by overgrazing, which results in expansion of the true desert, a stony waste where not even Bactrian camels can survive.
VITAL INFORMATION:

CAPITAL AND LARGEST CITY:ULAN BATOR

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE:MONGOLIAN

TOTAL AREA:1,564,116KM

POPULATION:2,951,786

DENSITY:1.7/KM

GDP:TOTAL-$5.56BILLION

PER CAPITA-$2175

HDI:0.700(114TH)

CURRENCY:Tögrög (MNT)

TIME ZONE:(UTC+7 to +8)

CALLING CODE:+976

BILBOGRAPHY:WIKIPEDIA
DONE BY:KEITH TAN JUN JIE(21)
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