Mongolei

The vast steppes of Mongolia have been home to nomadic herders for thousands of years. Powerful confederations such as the Xiongnu and later several Turkic and Uyghur khaganates rose and fell here, shaping the history o…

Orkhon is one of Mongolia's youngest provinces: it was carved out of Bulgan Province in 1994 and formed a new entity together with its capital, Erdenet, which until then had been administered as a federal municipality. …

Bulgan Province was officially established on 15 January 1938, following a decision taken the previous year, when it was separated from Selenge Province. That step gave the region its own administration and the boundari…

Govi-Altai is the least densely populated of Mongolia's 21 aimags, and that single fact explains much about it: great distances between settlements, and communities that have long learned to rely on one another. Its nam…

Sükhbaatar Province carries the name of Damdin Sükhbaatar, and its Mongolian name is often translated as "Axe Hero". That name is the clearest marker of the province's place in the country's modern story. One of Mongoli…

Dornod, whose name simply means "East", was created in the administrative reorganisation of 1941. It was first called Choibalsan, after Khorloogiin Choibalsan, and the aimag carried that name until 1963, when it was giv…

Ulaanbaatar began in 1639 as a nomadic Buddhist monastic centre that moved 29 times before settling permanently in its present location in 1778. As Örgöö (Urga), it became Mongolia's foremost religious centre and the se…

Govisümber's history is closely tied to the Borjigin clan, the lineage of Genghis Khan, whose ancestor Bodonchar is said in the Secret History of the Mongols to have founded the clan. In 1691, when the Qing emperor divi…

Övörkhangai, "South Khangai", is home to one of the most important historic places in Mongolia: Karakorum, the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century, where envoys and merchants from across Asia …

Dundgovi, the "Middle Gobi", lies in southern Mongolia, about 245 km south of Ulaanbaatar, where the steppe gradually gives way to the desert. For centuries this has been a land of nomadic herders, who move with camels,…

Arkhangai Province lies on the northern slopes of the Khangai Mountains, in lands that were the heart of several early steppe empires. Here stand the famous Old Turkic stone inscriptions honouring the rulers of the Turk…

Töv, meaning "centre", surrounds Mongolia's capital Ulaanbaatar, although the city itself is administered separately. The province's landscapes have long been bound up with the nation's history: the sacred Bogd Khan Mou…

The city of Darkhan was founded on 17 October 1961 within Selenge Province, planned as Mongolia's second industrial centre to relieve pressure on the capital, Ulaanbaatar. Built in a wide valley in the north of the coun…

Khentii Province in eastern Mongolia, named after the Khentii Mountains, is best known as the birthplace – and most likely the final resting place – of Genghis Khan. From the rivers and forests of this region, Temüjin r…

Zavkhan Province in western Mongolia is named after the Zavkhan River, which forms its border with Govi-Altai. Its capital, Uliastai, is one of the oldest towns in the region, having grown in the Qing era as a garrison …

Selenge lies in the broad, fertile basins of the Selenge and Orkhon rivers, among Mongolia's most important waterways. Here, in the eighteenth century, the Amarbayasgalant Monastery was built, one of the most important …

After the Mongolian Revolution of 1921, the government created the Jewel Mountain Province (Chandmani uuliin aimag), which covered the whole western part of the country. In 1931 it was divided into the Khovd and Dörvöd …

Khövsgöl Province, Mongolia's northernmost aimag, was established in 1931 and takes its name from Lake Khövsgöl, the country's largest freshwater lake. Its first administrative centre was Khatgal, on the southern tip of…

Ömnögovi, the South Gobi, is Mongolia's southernmost and largest province. It became world-famous in the 1920s when expeditions at the Flaming Cliffs (Bayanzag) uncovered dinosaur fossils and the first scientifically re…

Bayankhongor aimag was formed in 1941, originally under the name Govi-Bumbugur, with 16 districts and about 41,000 people. Stretching from the Khangai Mountains to the Gobi, it is one of Mongolia's largest provinces. In…