Jebtsundamba Khutuktu
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Outer Mongolia had 583 monasteries and temple complexes, which controlled an estimated 20 percent of the country's wealth. Almost all Mongolian cities have grown up on the sites of monasteries. "Ikh Huree", as Ulaanbaatar was then known, was the seat of the preeminent living Buddha of Mongolia (the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, also known as the Bogdo Gegen and later as the Bogd Khan), who ranked third in the ecclesiastical hierarchy after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. Two monasteries there contained approximately 13,000 and 7000 monks, respectively, and the pre-revolutionary name of the settlement known to outsiders as "Urga", "Ikh Huree", means "Big Monastery".