With an area of 1565 square kilometers, Mongolia is about four and a half times the size of Germany. However, while Germany is inhabited by around 80 million people, only 3.5 million people live in Mongolia, of which around 1.4 million, about half, live in the capital. This makes Mongolia the country with the lowest population density in the world: an average of 1.6 people live per square kilometer. For comparison: In Germany, there are 226, in Switzerland 195 and in Austria 101. About 57 percent of Mongolians live in the cities – and the trend is rising. The largest cities after Ulan Bator are Erdenet, Darkhan, Choibalsan, and Murun with populations between 25,000 and 75,000.
Aging and Citizenship
Mongolia is one of the countries with a very low average age: over 70 percent of Mongolians are under 35 years old, one third are under 15 years old. About eight million Mongolians live outside the country, most of them in China. 3.8 million live in Inner Mongolia, which was annexed by China around 100 years ago. Today they are a minority in their own country. China lured Han Chinese to the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, which drove the Mongolian nomads from their pastures to cultivate their own crops. Many Mongolians also live in the Chinese province of Xinjiang on the border with Kazakhstan.
There is also the Chinese province of Yunnan autonomous Mongolian settlement area in the form of small villages. Ethnic groups In Mongolia there are some other ethnic groups apart from the Mongols. A fifth of the residents belong to different ethnic groups. The largest are mentioned here: the Kazakhs, Buryats and Tuvas. Mongols Khalkh Mongols with 81 percent, which corresponds to about 2.27 million people, the Khalkh Mongols represent the largest ethnic group. Their language, an East Mongolian dialect, is the official language of Mongolia.
Western Mongolians
The West Mongols, who in turn consist mainly of Oirats, are a separate tribe, which includes about seven percent of the population. In the 17th century, a western Mongolian tribe, the Kalmyks, settled in the autonomous Russian republic of Kalmykia on the Volga.
Dariganga
The Dariganga tribe forms a subgroup of the East Mongols. These include around 32,000 people who mainly live in the Sukhbaatar province and speak their own dialect. The Dariganga are famous for their blacksmithing skills.
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs, mostly of Muslim faith, live as the largest ethnic group with a share of 4.3 percent of the total population, especially in western Mongolia in Bayan-Ulgii, where they settled in the mid-18th century. There are about 70,000 Kazakhs in Mongolia today. Like the Tuvas, they belong to the Turkic peoples. After 1991, when Kazakhstan became independent, many Kazakhs returned to their country. After the end of communist rule, they built their first mosque again in Bayan-Ulgii. Many Kazakhs work in mining in Mongolia. Kazakh handicrafts, such as carpet weaving, embroidery, and woven art, are very colorful and highly valued in Mongolia.
Buryats
This tribe lives mainly in the autonomous republic of Buryatia, which belongs to Russia and is located in southern Siberia. The approximately 260,000 Buryats living there form a minority within the largely Russian population. In total, there are about 300,000 Buryats, from northeastern Mongolia to Inner Mongolia. About 40,000 Buryats live in Mongolia, mainly in the north of the Khentii province and on the border with Russia in the east. They live mainly in log houses with gardens and cultivate crops. Their sedentary lifestyle shows the difference from the Mongolian way of life. Buryats eat far more fish and vegetables than Mongolians. The Buryat language belongs to the group of East Mongolian languages.
Tuvas
With a share of 1.1 percent, the Tuvas (also Urianchai) are also among the ethnic groups in Mongolia. Most Tuvans live in the Autonomous Russian Republic of Tuva. The approximately 190,000 Tuvas living there speak a Turkic language, and their culture is very similar to that of Mongolia. A few thousand Tuvans are now based in Mongolia in the border region in the north, especially in the Uvs province. A famous member of this tribe is the poet Galsan Tschinag. He promotes the German language in Mongolia, his foundation is responsible, for example, for the establishment of the German-language radio program in Ulan Bator, which is now managed by his son. He was honored with several literary prizes for his works.
