Mongolia travel guide

It was Genghis though that really kicked it all off for Mongolia, establishing the largest empire in history and one that extended from present-day Poland in the west to the Korean peninsula in the east and from Siberia in the north to Vietnam in the south covering an area of over 33 million km2. Following Khan’s death in 1227, the empire was subdivided, conquered and suffocated into submission for centuries and was ruled by China’s Qing dynasty until 1911. That year saw the Qing dynasty fall and, having been invaded by China and finding a friend in Russia in 1920, thereafter saw a long period of Russian support for the country and the emergence of a socialist Mongolia ruled under a Soviet-dominated communist regime for almost 70 years. In March 1990, a democratic revolution that started with hunger strikes to overthrow the government led to the peaceful renouncement of communism and Mongolia adopting a multi-party system, a new constitution and a transition to a market economy; over the past three decades, it has embraced political and economic reform and is now one of the world’s fastest growing economies. This has not come without its drawbacks however and the withdrawal of Soviet support in the country has since triggered widespread poverty and unemployment. A third of the population lives in the capital, Ulaan Baatar, while approximately 40% of the country's working population herd cattle in the extensive pasturelands and, as with any fast developing country, the centuries-old nomadic lifestyle is coming under pressure from climate change and urbanisation. Furthermore, Mongolia sits on vast quantities of untapped mineral wealth, and although foreign investment in a number of massive mining projects is expected to transform the country yet more over coming years, how much of that wealth will feed back in to supporting the rural people that really need it is yet to be seen.