Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, with a western strip beyond the Ural River in Eastern Europe and a shore on the Caspian Sea. It borders Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and covers about 2,700,000 km2 (1,000,000 sq mi).

Astana is the capital, while Almaty, the capital until 1997, remains the largest city. Kazakh is the state language and Russian has equal status as an official language. Nomadic Iranian peoples such as the Saka grazed the steppe in antiquity, and Turkic nomads arrived from the 6th century. After the Golden Horde broke up, Kerei and Janibek founded the Kazakh Khanate in the mid-15th century, later split into three zhuz, the Senior, Middle and Junior hordes. By the middle of the 19th century the Russian Empire ruled the whole territory, and in 1936 it became a union republic of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan declared full independence on 16 December 1991, the last Soviet republic to do so.

The unitary republic has a president, a prime minister who chairs the cabinet, and a one-chamber parliament called the Kurultai. Oil and gas lead the economy, from fields such as Tengiz, Karachaganak and Kashagan, and the state firm KazMunayGas was set up in 2002. The country also mines and exports uranium, and its farms grow wheat, barley, cotton and rice and raise livestock for meat, wool and leather. It joined the World Trade Organization in 2015.

The Kazakh Steppe fills a third of the country, and in the southeast the Charyn Canyon cuts 80 km (50 mi) through red sandstone. Yuri Gagarin flew into space in 1961 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which Russia leases. The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yassaui, the petroglyphs of Tamgaly and the steppe and lakes of Saryarka are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The poet Abai Qunanbaiuly shaped the modern Kazakh literary language, and the national folk orchestra bears the name of the 19th-century dombra player Kurmangazy. Horse meat and beef are served with many kinds of bread, and boxing has brought the country many Olympic medals.