🇲🇳 Mongolia
Ulaanbaatar
Ulaanbaatar (Улаанбаатар — "Red Hero"; population 1.6 million — half of Mongolia's entire population in a single city; the capital and largest city of Mongolia; the world's coldest capital city (the average annual temperature is -1.3°C; the January average is -22°C with extremes reaching -40°C; the city sits in a valley at 1,350 m altitude surrounded by four sacred mountains)) is the gateway to the last great nomadic culture on earth and the capital of a country where, despite urbanisation, 30% of the population (and a much higher proportion of rural Mongolians) still live the traditional nomadic herding lifestyle in gers (the circular felt tents of the Mongolian nomads — the "yurt" in the Central Asian Turkic tradition, but "ger" (meaning "home") is the Mongolian term). Mongolia (the most sparsely populated country in the world with 3.4 million people in 1,564,116 km² — a population density of 2.2 people/km²) was the heartland of the Mongol Empire (the largest contiguous land empire in history: at its peak in 1270 CE the empire covered 24 million km² — 22% of the Earth's total land area — and ruled over 100 million people (one quarter of the world's population at the time), stretching from Korea to Poland and from Siberia to Vietnam, united under Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan, c. 1162-1227 CE) and his successors). The Gandan Monastery (Gandantegchinlen Khiid — the largest and most important active Buddhist monastery in Mongolia, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition preserved through the Soviet period (the monastery was allowed to function as a showpiece during the Communist era, 1924-1990)) is the spiritual centre of Ulaanbaatar. The 40-metre stainless steel Chinggis Khan Equestrian Statue (54 km east of Ulaanbaatar) is the largest equestrian statue in the world.