Kazakhstan Country Info - Asia

Description and Basic Information

Kazakhstan with its capital Astana is located in Asia (Central Asia, northwest of China; a small portion west of the Ural (Zhayyq) River in eastern-most Europe). It covers some 2,717,301 square kilometres (slightly less than four times the size of Texas) with 15,340,000 citizens. Kazakh and Russian are the the languages spoken by people in Kazakhstan. Turkmenistan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Russia are bordering countries.

Kazakhstan is by far the largest of the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union. Since its cold and windy weather conditions visiting saunas with friends is very popular in Kazakhstan. Saunas (Russian banyas or Finnish steam rooms) are an excellent place to discuss business issues or just socialize with friends. Having parties (birthdays, New Year, etc) in saunas is a normal practice.

Pictures from Capital (Astana)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Kazakhstan

The terrain offers vast flat steppe extending from the Volga in the west to the Altai Mountains in the east and from the plains of western Siberia in the north to oases and deserts of Central Asia in the south. The average density of population is about 5 per km². The climate in Kazakhstan can be described as continental, cold winters and hot summers, arid and semiarid. Possible natural disasters include earthquakes in the south or mudslides around Almaty.

To reach someone in Kazakhstan dial +7 prior to a number. There are 3,763,000 installed telephones. And there are 14,995,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".kz". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 220V - 50Hz. The following list are the 17 regions/states in Kazakhstan we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Kazakhstani population grew at a rate of 0.4% (or by 61,687 citizens). With 145,174 deaths and 257,572 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 0.73%. -50,710 persons more in total emmigrated from the country than immigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Kazakhstan: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.