Geography of Mongolia

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Territory of today's Mongolian State
Inner Mongolia Territory
Tawan Bogd , a mountain range in the west of the country

The geography of Mongolia includes today's Mongolian state with an area of ​​1,564,116 km², in the ranking of the existing states in 19th place, and Inner Mongolia , an autonomous region in the People's Republic of China with 1,218,698 km². The historical term Outer Mongolia roughly encompasses today's, independent state of Mongolia, which, in contrast, has a numerically small population of currently 3,068,243, which results in a population density of only 1.96 inhabitants per km². The Mongolian state is currently the most sparsely populated country in the world. In contrast, Inner Mongolia has a population density of 20.51 inhabitants per km².

45% of the people of the Mongolian state live in the capital Ulaanbaatar with 1,380,792 inhabitants. All other cities are by far much smaller and each have less than 100,000 inhabitants. Some city foundations are relatively new: Erdenet , the second largest city, came into being only from 1974 due to copper ore mining. The third largest city of Darchan was founded in 1961 as an industrial location. The Inner Mongolia has 25 million inhabitants, the capital of Hohhot has with 2,866,615 (2010) about twice as many inhabitants as Ulaanbaatar.

geology

Another special feature is the altitude: around a third of the country are high mountains, the mean altitude is around 1580 meters above sea ​​level . In the west of the country, on the border with China , in the Altai is the Chüiten peak, at 4,374 m the highest mountain in Mongolia. Nearby is the Potanin Glacier, with a length of 14 km the largest in Mongolia, but which has melted significantly due to climate change ; In the 1970s there were still 36 glaciers with a total area of ​​160 km²; the Potanin Glacier was then given a length of 20 km. The Mongolian part of the mountain range in which these glaciers are located belongs to the Altai Tavan Bogd National Park with an area of ​​6,362 km². The lakes Khoton (50 km²), Khurgan and Dayan (67 km²) are located here. The Mongolian Plateau is one of the most resource-rich areas on earth. Above all hard coal , but also diamonds , dolomite , iron ore , fluorspar , gold , copper , molybdenum , phosphorite , silver , silicates , tungsten , uranium , zinc and tin as well as various rare earths are mined . There are also oil and gas reserves. The petroleum is characterized by a high paraffin content . The extraction of these mineral resources is currently still associated with high environmental pollution .

The Ulaan-Tsutgalan waterfall on Ulaan Gol, shortly before it flows into the Orkhon

Hydrology

The proportion of water areas is often underestimated for the Mongolian state at 10,560 km². This is due to the countless lakes and the heavy icing in winter. The country's water reservoir consists of 10% glaciers and 84% lakes. In 2007 there were around 260 glaciers with a total area of ​​660 km². The total area of ​​all lakes is given as 16,003 km², with 83.7% of the lakes each being smaller than 0.1 km². There are 3,060 with an area of ​​0.1 km² or more. The largest lakes in the country in terms of area are the Uws Nuur with around 3350 km² and the Chöwsgöl Nuur with 2760 km². The Chöwsgöl Nuur has an average depth of 138.5 m and a volume of 383.7 km³; it thus contains 74% of the country's drinking water reserves. The longest river in Mongolia is the Orkhon . It rises in the Changai Mountains , in central Mongolia.

The Gobi desert in the south of Mongolia, which extends far as far as China, is known. It was created because the highlands of Tibet prevent rain clouds from moving northwards. It is a relatively cold desert area that is currently expanding due to increasing land use.

See also

Mongolian plateau

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2147rank.html#mg Without considering the Antarctic
  2. ^ A b East & Southeast Asia: MONGOLIA. In: The World Factbook . Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), accessed November 28, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Kargel, Jeffrey Stuart, Global Land Ice Measurements from Space, Springer-Praxis series in geophysics, Springer 2014, ISBN 3540798188 , page 481 ff.
  4. ↑ Article Tawan Bogd in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)http: //vorlage_gse.test/1%3D108362~2a%3DTawan%20Bogd~2b%3DTawan%20Bogd
  5. ^ Nicole Funck, Sarah Fischer: Mongolei. Economy. Verlag Peter Rump, 2015, p. 384.
  6. ^ Amnesty International Annual Report Mongolia 2006. Amnesty International, accessed July 20, 2017.
  7. ↑ Tserenbaltavyn Sarantuya: Project country Mongolia. Mining in Mongolia. Hanns Seidel Foundation, 2014, p. 4 f.
  8. ↑ Gombo Davaa, Dambaravjaa Oyunbaatar, Michiaki Sugita: Surface Water of Mongolia (English)
  9. ^ Mining and Agriculture. The Mongolian plateau is drying up. SPIEGELonline of February 3, 2015, accessed on July 20, 2017.