Mongolia is a vast, landlocked country in East Asia, wedged between Russia and China, a land of endless grasslands, deserts, and mountains under a famously wide sky. One of the most sparsely populated nations on Earth, it preserves a living tradition of nomadic herding stretching back millennia. From this thinly peopled steppe came Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire, which in the thirteenth century became the largest contiguous land empire in history.
Mongolia's history runs from the nomadic horse peoples of the ancient steppe, through the world-shaking empire of Genghis Khan, to centuries under foreign rule, a communist century, and the democracy of today.
For thousands of years the Mongolian steppe was home to nomadic horse peoples, herders and warriors who lived by their flocks and their mounts. A succession of steppe empires rose and fell here, among them the Turkic Göktürk khaganate, long before the Mongols themselves united, leaving behind carved stones and buried treasures.
The great turning point came in the early thirteenth century, when Genghis Khan united the warring Mongol tribes and launched the conquests that built the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen, stretching from Korea to Eastern Europe. His descendants ruled much of Eurasia, and his grandson Kublai Khan conquered all of China, founding the Yuan dynasty and ruling from a court of legendary splendour.
After the empire fragmented the Mongols returned to the steppe, divided among rival khans. In the sixteenth century Altan Khan embraced Tibetan Buddhism and gave the Dalai Lama his title, binding Mongolia to a faith that would build great monasteries and shape its culture for centuries.
Under the later Qing empire Mongolia was ruled from China for more than two centuries. As Qing power collapsed, Mongolia declared independence in 1911 under its Buddhist spiritual leader, and after a period of turmoil it became, with Soviet help, the world's second communist state in the 1920s. Decades of one-party rule and harsh Stalinist purges followed, until Mongolia made a peaceful transition to democracy in 1990.
According to the medieval Secret History of the Mongols, the people descend from a union at the beginning of time between a blue-grey wolf and a fallow deer, whose offspring became the ancestors of the Mongol clans, the line that led eventually to Genghis Khan. This origin story is a treasured part of Mongolian identity and folklore. As a literal account of descent it belongs to legend rather than history, even as it preserves the deep self-understanding of a nomadic people.
Mongolia is a huge country of open spaces and dramatic extremes. Rolling steppe grasslands cover much of the land, giving way to the great Gobi Desert in the south and to forested mountains in the north and west. With a harsh continental climate of bitterly cold winters and short, warm summers, and almost no part of the country near a sea, it is a place of vast horizons and severe weather. This open landscape has shaped a culture built around horses, herds, and movement.
Mongolia is a democracy, a semi-presidential republic with an elected president and a parliament, the State Great Khural, from which a prime minister governs. Since its peaceful revolution of 1990 it has held regular multi-party elections, a rare functioning democracy in a region of authoritarian neighbours, though its politics has lately been turbulent. The presidency has been held since 2021 by Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh of the Mongolian People's Party, while a rapid succession of prime ministers, amid protests over inequality and corruption, has seen several changes of government in a short span.
Mongolia's economy has been transformed by mining. Beneath its steppe and desert lie vast deposits of copper, gold, and coal, and the giant Oyu Tolgoi mine and huge coal exports to neighbouring China have driven rapid growth. This mineral wealth offers great promise but also great risk, tying the country's fortunes to commodity prices and to China, and stirring fierce debate over corruption and how the proceeds should be shared. Herding, the traditional livelihood, remains vital, and cashmere from Mongolia's goats is a famous export.
The flag of Mongolia has three vertical bands, red on the outer edges and blue in the centre, with a golden national emblem, the Soyombo, on the hoist-side red band. The blue represents the eternal blue sky revered by Mongolians, and the red the prosperity and freedom of the nation. The Soyombo is an intricate symbol made up of geometric shapes and elements, including fire, sun, and moon, each carrying its own meaning in a powerful emblem of independence.
The majority of Mongolians follow Tibetan Buddhism, which spread across the country from the sixteenth century and built great monasteries, though much of this religious life was destroyed under communist rule and has revived since 1990. Underlying and intertwined with Buddhism is an ancient tradition of shamanism, honouring the spirits of the sky, the land, and the ancestors, which remains a living part of Mongolian belief. A Kazakh minority in the west is Muslim.
Mongolian cuisine reflects the nomadic, pastoral way of life, centred on meat and dairy with few vegetables, food suited to a harsh climate and a mobile herding culture. Mutton and beef are staples, often boiled, and steamed meat-filled dumplings called buuz are a favourite. Dairy products in many forms, from cheeses to the mildly alcoholic fermented mare's milk known as airag, are central to the diet, especially in summer when the herds give plentiful milk.
Agriculture in Mongolia is dominated by livestock herding rather than crops, a continuation of the ancient nomadic tradition. Vast herds of sheep, goats, cattle, horses, and camels roam the steppe, and the country is one of the world's major producers of cashmere, the fine wool combed from its goats. Crop farming is limited by the cold, dry climate, concentrated on wheat and fodder in the north. Herding remains central to both the economy and the national identity.
Mongolian culture flows from the nomadic life of the steppe: a love of horses, hospitality to travellers in the felt tents known as gers, and the round of moving with the seasons. Its greatest celebration is the Naadam festival, the games of the three manly sports of wrestling, horse racing, and archery, held each summer across the country. Long-drawn throat singing, the fiddle known as the morin khuur, and a deep reverence for Genghis Khan as the father of the nation bind the modern country to its past, even as half its people now live in the city.
Modern Mongolia faces a set of live and unresolved debates. Landlocked between Russia and China, it depends on both for trade and energy, above all on China as the buyer of its minerals, and it works to preserve its independence by cultivating what it calls third neighbours, from Japan and South Korea to the United States and Europe. At home, the mining boom that has enriched the country has also fed bitter arguments over corruption and over how fairly its wealth is shared, contributing to protests and to a rapid turnover of governments. The pressures of a changing climate add another strain: harsh winters known as dzud periodically kill millions of animals and drive herders to the city, while coal smoke has made the winter air of Ulaanbaatar among the most polluted of any capital. How to balance mining and herding, wealth and fairness, and its two powerful neighbours remains the central question of the country's future.
Mongolia has a population of only around 3.4 million people spread across an enormous territory, making it the most sparsely populated sovereign country in the world. The great majority are ethnic Mongols, with a Kazakh minority in the west. A large and growing share now live in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, the coldest national capital on Earth, while many others continue a traditional herding life on the steppe, living in the round felt tents known as gers.
