Mongolia (Qingdao)

## Mongolia

* Flag
* FlagMap
* Outline Border Map

*Mongolia* (Mongol: Монгол Улс, Traditional Mongolian: ) is a landlocked country in (central) Far East Asia. In TSIGPIGS, they're male in both the mapping and object style, and compete in the team of Far East.

During the selection process, Mongolia was selected as an individual candidate, however, due to the "lower cast mandate for MS", they merged with China to form Qingdao, which later became a puppet of India (Asian Samrajye).

## Geography

Mongolia is a country with no coast (landlocked country) sandwiched between Russia to the North and China to the South. They debatably also have a little bit of a border to Kazakhstan from the West.

### Political Geography

Mongolia is the 18th largest country in the world. The country is divided into a total of 21 provinces (or *aimags*) with the capital "Ulanbaatar", meaning "Red Hero", in the north-east acting as its own municipality with provincial status. The city in itself hold about 45% of the entire country's population. Otherwise, the 2nd and 3rd largest cities are Erdenet and Darkhan respectively, and are located relatively close to Ulanbaatar.

Despite Mongolia not having any border issues, or territorial disputes, they do have some interesting border demarcations, such as the narrow Western slot of Lake Buir, shared with China, a small Russian slice of the Uvs Lake, the tripont monument on the east for China, Russia, and Mongolia at Tarbagan-Dakh, and plans for a western tripoint marker on the peak of Mount Tvan Bogdo Ula are on the way.

While saying "Mongolia", the person obviously refers to what constitutes the boundary of "modern-day state Mongolia". However, keep in mind that the regions of what are now "Inner Mongolia" that belonged to China/PRC were part of the larger Mongolian region, and today has more ethnic Mongols than actual Mongolia. (i.e., 2× as many)

### Physical Geography

Mongolia is known as the "Land of Eternal Blue Sky", as they get over 250 sunny days a year. They are closely in the Central Asia Spot, although the actual geographic center of Asia is claimed by 3 spots-2 in Russia, 1 in China; but Mongolia is actually relatively close to all 3 of them.

While lying between the center of Asia, Mongolia is also sandwiched between the Gobi Desert at the South, and their are 3 main small mountain chains-

* The Altai in the west where you can find the tallest peak, Khütien, on the border with China.
* The Khangal in the north, where you can find the deepest freshwater lake, Khövsgöl (despite the hyper saline Lake Uvs has comparatively more area).

In between these 2 mountain chains lies the Valley of Lakes, where most of Mongolia's natural lakes lie

* The Khentil in the North which is where the longest river, the Orkhon, flows, sourced by Lake Baikal in the Buryat Republic of Russia.

Overall, the south is a dry cold desert, the north is greener and hillier, with more grassy hills and water, and the entire country is subjugated to the massive atmospheric pressure zone known as the "Siberian Anticyclone". This is a huge cold dry airmass with massive pressure that accumulates between September and April usually centered around to Lake Baikal, and it grows as far as Italy in the west, and Malaysia to the south. In a nutshell, this is what generally keeps Mongolia chillier and windier, although they get lots of sunshine with little snow.

Basically, it's a dry landmass and the rainiest spot only gets about 1.4 inches of rain at a year, best. In fact, the only natural disastrous event they faced would be *Dzud*, a harsh climactic condition that causes massive amounts of livestock to die off due to freezing conditions and starvation. Also, the Gobi Desert is the source of the eastern winds that causes all the dust storms that fly all the way across Eastern Asia.

Mongolia is known for being very large and empty, which makes it the perfect habitable ground for grazing livestock. In terms of wildlife, Mongolia is a horse haven. They're often considered as the national animal. The horses have played such a huge role in the Mongolian history from transportation, horse-riding, food, milk, and sports. In fact, Mongolia is the home of the last truly wild horses in the world known as "Takhi". Otherwise, the double-humped Bactrian camel are also national treasures. Other species like the Saiga antelope with their weird noses roam around the grassland.

## Economy

Mongolia's economy is boosted on 2 major industrial sectors-herding, and mining. However, both sectors have been declining in the past decades in favor for service jobs. Mongolia is also the 2nd largest producer of Cashmere goat wool globally, just behind China. Yaks are also used for milk and dairy.

### Exports/Imports

#### Minerals

Minerals make up about 80% of their exports, mostly in Au (Gold) and Cu (Copper).

## Transport

### Via Road

Literally all road in Mongolia eventually at least led to Ulanbaatar one way or the other.

The country has a main railway that transects the North to South entering both Russia and China, which also connects the larger well-known Trans-Siberian railway in Russia. More lines are planned to be built in future, but for now, almost the entire western part of Mongolia is only accessible by crude roads and paths.

### Via Air

Ulanbaatar holds the only International Airport Chinggis Khan International, and a new airport is being built on the other side of the mountain called New Ulaanbator International.

## Trivia

* You can walk a straight mile from France (Alsace) to Mongolia (Bayan-Ölgii) without crossing a lake.
	+ You'll have to cross through Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and possible China and Switzerland to get to Mongolia from France (Alsace) or vice versa.
* It is estimated that about 13 times more horses and 30 times more sheep live in the country more than the actual human population of Mongolia.
* The endangered Takhi horse species have 66 chromosomes, 2 more than the actual horses.
* There's a festival held for the Bactrian Camel for their own devotion.
* ~1⁄3 of the word's snow leopard population lives in Mongolia.
* Mongolia has the 2nd largest population of yaks, after China.