Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is a very, very big country.

It is in the middle of Asia. It has wide, flat grassy land. It has sandy deserts and tall mountains. The capital city is called Astana.

Kazakhstan is a country in Central Asia. It is the largest country in that part of the world and the ninth largest on Earth, about 2,930 kilometers from east to west. It is landlocked, which means it has no coast on the open ocean, although the Caspian Sea, a huge inland body of water, forms part of its border.

Much of Kazakhstan is flat or rolling land: lowlands, plains and plateaus, with deserts in the south and mountains along the east and southeast. About 20.6 million people lived there in 2026, and the capital is Astana.

Kazakhstan, a former union republic of the Soviet Union, declared independence on 16 December 1991. Britannica calls it the largest country in Central Asia and the ninth largest in the world; between its most distant points it measures about 2,930 km east to west and about 1,545 km (960 miles) north to south. It is landlocked, bounded by Russia to the north and northwest, China to the east, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea and Turkmenistan to the south, with the Caspian Sea to the southwest.

Lowlands make up about one-third of the land, hilly plateaus and plains nearly half, and low mountains about one-fifth. The Bureau of National Statistics put the population at 20,618,796 on 1 September 2026, of whom 13,236,041 lived in towns and cities and 7,382,755 in the countryside. Astana, in the north-central part of the country, is the capital.

Astana is the capital city.

It has tall, shiny towers. Winters there are very cold. Almaty is the biggest city. It sits below high mountains. An old building in Turkestan has bright blue domes.

Astana, on the Ishim River, became the capital in 1997. Its winters are so cold that Britannica calls it one of the coldest capitals in the world. A Japanese architect, Kurokawa Kishō, designed its broad avenues and blue-and-gold buildings.

Almaty is the largest city, lying in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains. It was the capital before Astana, and long ago it was a trading town on the Silk Road. In the southern city of Turkestan stands the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, built from 1389 to 1405, a World Heritage Site with great tiled domes.

Astana began in 1824 as a Russian military outpost on the Ishim (Esıl) River and has changed its name several times: Akmolinsk, Tselinograd, Aqmola, Astana, Nur-Sultan (2019-22) and Astana again. The government moved the capital there from Almaty in 1997. With an average of about -22 °C at the peak of winter, it is one of the coldest capitals in the world. Its buildings include Norman Foster's Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, a 62-meter pyramid.

Almaty, the largest city (about 2.16 million people, 2023 estimate), lies at 700-900 m in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau. It was a Silk Road trading center, was refounded as a Russian fort in 1854, and was the capital from 1929 to 1997. The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi in Turkestan, ordered by Timur and built from 1389 to 1405, was never finished; UNESCO, which inscribed it in 2003, calls it one of the largest and best-preserved buildings of the Timurid period.

Much of Kazakhstan is wide, flat grassland.

In the south there are sandy deserts. In the east there are tall, snowy mountains. Winters are very cold. Summers are hot.

Kazakhstan has huge plains and grasslands called steppe, sandy deserts in the south, and salt lakes in the middle of the country. Its highest point, Khan Tengri, rises about 6,995 meters in the Tien Shan mountains on the border with Kyrgyzstan and China. In the west the land sinks into the Caspian Depression, which dips about 29 meters below sea level.

The climate is extreme. In January, the north averages about -19 to -16 °C, while in July the south can average 29 °C. Little rain falls, and forest covers only about 3 percent of the land.

Britannica describes a sharply continental climate: average January temperatures of -19 to -16 °C in the north and center and -5 to -1.4 °C in the south, July averages of 20 °C in the north and 29 °C in the south, and recorded extremes of -45 °C and 45 °C. Northern and central regions receive only 200-300 mm of precipitation a year.

Khan Tengri, about 6,995 m in Britannica, stands in the Tien Shan where Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China meet; in the west, the Caspian Depression reaches about 29 m below sea level. Deserts such as the Betpaqdala, Moiynqum and Qyzylqum cover the interior and south. Most of the country's 7,000 streams drain inland to the Aral and Caspian seas and Lakes Balqash and Tengiz, but the Irtysh, Ishim and Tobol run northwest and, crossing Russia, drain into Arctic waters. As river water was diverted for farming in the second half of the 20th century, the Aral Sea shrank and grew saltier, and its exposed shores became a source of salty, polluted dust.

Snow leopards live in the high hills.

Wolves and bears live there too. Antelopes run on the wide plains. Many birds stop at the lakes on their long trips.

Britannica lists antelope and elk on Kazakhstan's plains, and wolves, bears and snow leopards in the hills. Fish such as sturgeon and herring are caught in the Caspian Sea.

In the north, two nature reserves, Naurzum and Korgalzhyn, form a World Heritage Site called Saryarka. Their lakes are important stopping places for water birds flying between Africa, Europe and South Asia and their nesting grounds in Siberia. Rare birds such as the Siberian white crane and the Dalmatian pelican visit, and the steppe there is a refuge for the saiga antelope.

Vegetation on the plains and deserts includes wormwood, tamarisk and feather grass. Britannica names antelope and elk on the plains; wolf, bear, snow leopard, ermine and sable in the hills; and sturgeon, herring and roach fished from the Caspian. Where pollution caused commercial fishing to collapse in parts of the northeast and southwest, efforts to revive fish populations have had some success.

Saryarka - Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan, inscribed by UNESCO in 2008, joins the Naurzum and Korgalzhyn state nature reserves, 450,344 hectares in all. Its fresh and salt lakes are stopover points on the Central Asian flyway for globally threatened water birds, among them the Siberian white crane, the Dalmatian pelican and Pallas's fish eagle. Its 200,000 hectares of steppe hold more than half the steppe plant species of the region and shelter the saiga antelope, once abundant and much reduced by poaching.

About 20 million people live in Kazakhstan.

Many people speak Kazakh. Many speak Russian too. Some families raise sheep, goats and cows. A yurt is a round tent with a wooden frame.

About 20.6 million people lived in Kazakhstan in 2026, and most of them live in towns and cities. Kazakhs make up more than two-thirds of the population. Other groups include Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Uyghurs, Tatars, Germans and Koreans. Kazakh is the state language, and Russian is also official and very widely understood.

Many farmers raise sheep, goats and cattle, and wheat is farmed on the northern plains. A yurt is a round home with a wooden frame covered in felt, which can be put up and taken down quickly. In aitys, two poets make up verses on the spot, spoken or sung to the music of the dombra, a stringed instrument.

Of the 20,618,796 people recorded on 1 September 2026, about 64 percent lived in urban areas, and Britannica notes a young population: about half under 30. By the 2020s Kazakhs were more than two-thirds of the population and Russians less than one-sixth, with Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Tajiks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars and Koreans among other groups. Kazakh, a Turkic language of the Kipchak group, is the state language; Russian is an official language and the most widely understood. Britannica describes the Kazakhs as a nominally Muslim people, and about one-fourth of the population is Eastern Orthodox.

More than 6,000 settlements are auyls, small farm villages, and fewer than 120 counted as cities or towns in 2025. UNESCO lists the craft of making yurts, felt-covered homes on a collapsible wooden frame, in which men make the frames and women the felt coverings and decorations, and aitys, a contest of improvised poetry performed to the dombra, in which many women now take part.