About Kazakhstan

KAZAKHASTAN is the ninth largest country in the world “Kazakh” comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, “to wander”, owing to the nomadic culture of Kazakhstan. It has often been translated to as the “land of wanderers” Kazakhstan is a depiction of the “middle earth” representative of the life in the steppe between the endless forest of Russia to the north and the world greatest mountain chain to the south. Stretching around 1820 miles east to west and 960 miles north to south, area of around 2,724,900 square kilometers, it is the largest country in central Asia and ninth largest in the world. It is bounded on the northwest and north by Russia, on the east by china, and on the south by Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan; bounded by the Caspian Sea from the southwest. Central Kazakhstan’s vast plains give way to isolated low mountainous range of Saryara, to the South and southeast melting into the mountainous system of Altai, Sauyr Tarbagatai, Dzhungarski Ala- Tau and Tien-Shan the highest point is hahn Thegri peak (6995 meter) Climate : The Climate of the Republic is deeply continental and extremely dry. It is severely in by the Arctic region and Eastern Siberia. The absence of any natural barriers in the north of the Republic, enables cold arctic winds and arctic air masses to come from these direction without restraint. Conversely, the high mountains rimming the east and the southeast of southeast of Kazakhstan, acts as a barrier to air masses from the south. This accounts for the rather unsparing winters over the greater part of the area of the Republic. In Kazakhstan summers are hot and dry with hot winds. Population: The Republic has a population of about 15 million people. Citizens of more than 100 ethnicity’s live in the country, the greater part of which are Kazakhs (more than 50%) and Russians (more than 30%). Among others, the largest percentages are Ukrainians, Germans and Uzbeks. According to the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kazakh is the official language. However, Russian is the language of business and interethnic intercourse. Regions and Cities: Kazakhstan is politically divided into 14 oblasts and 5 economic regions. There are82 cities and towns in the Republic. Some of them are Almaty, Zhambyl, Chimkent, Semipalatinsk, Pavlodar, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Astana, Uralsk, Karaganda and Aktyubinsk cities. On December 10,1997, the city of Astana was proclaimed the new capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan