Mongolia

Wealth and National Well-Being

Country Comparisons:
2010: see chart

World Factbook: "Economic activity in Mongolia has traditionally been based on herding and agriculture. Mongolia has extensive mineral deposits. Copper, coal, gold, molybdenum, fluorspar, uranium, tin, and tungsten account for a large part of industrial production and foreign direct investment. Soviet assistance, at its height one-third of GDP, disappeared almost overnight in 1990 and 1991 at the time of the dismantlement of the USSR. The following decade saw Mongolia endure both deep recession because of political inaction and natural disasters, as well as economic growth because of reform-embracing, free-market economics and extensive privatization of the formerly state-run economy."

Unemployment rate
2008: 2.8%
2007: 3%

Exports copper, apparel, livestock, animal products, cashmere, wool, hides, fluorspar, other nonferrous metals.

People

Living in an urban area
2008: 57%

Density estimated for 2005: 1.8 persons per square kilometer.

Geography

South of Russia. North of China. Landlocked. In size equivalent to 1,251 by 1,251 kilometers or 782 by 782 miles.

Government

Unicameral parliament with a president as chief of state popularly elected for a four-year term and eligible for a second term. Capital: Ulaanbaatar

Recent History

The great Mongol empire of the 13th and 14th centuries, the empire created by Genghis Khan and his sons, fragmented. Frequent clan warfare among the Mongols was followed by domination by China under the Manchus. After the Manchu dynasty fell in 1911, the Mongols declared independence. A Chinese warlord sent troops into Mongolia in 1919, which were expelled in 1921 by anti-Bolshevik Russians. The brutality of the Chinese and the anti-Bolshevik Russians magnified Mongol desire for independence. Mongol nationalists asked for and received help from the Bolsheviks, and together these two forces took over the country, retaining as a figurehead rule a Buddhist leader.

During Stalin's rule, purges took place in Mongolia, including attacks on monasteries and the executions of thousands of Buddhist monks. Three percent of Mongolia's population, it is estimated, were killed in these times.

During the arguments between the Soviet and Chinese rulers in the early sixties, the Chinese described it as fortunate that the Mongols had conquered the Russians, bringing civilization to the backward Russians. The Soviets described Genghis Khan as a barbarian. During the 1960s the Soviets moved to suppress Genghis Khan as a father figure among the Mongols. An official in Mongolia's communist government sponsored a scholarly symposium on Genghis Khan and wanted the creation of a marker at Genghis Khan's birthplace. For this he went the way of the Hungarian communist, Imre Nagy. He was executed -- cut down with an ax.

Mongolia maintained close ties with the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union collapsed. There was no more soviet aid. Economic recession followed. The Communists gave up power in 1996, allowing elections that brought to power the Democratic Union Coalition (DUC). As a strong opposition, the communists, embodied in the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), stalled a move toward free market economics, and in 2000 they regained power, winning 72 of Mongolia's 76-seat legislature.

July 2008: With new exploitation of mineral wealth some people can afford to eat in foreign-owned restaurants and drive expensive SUVs, and they are resented by some who are less affluent. According to the BBC, "a third of the population struggles to survive on $2 a day."

Mongolia has two major political parties. The dominant party is the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), which is slightly to the left of the minority party, the Democratic Party, which favors more free enterprise. Both parties welcome foreign investment and Western mining companies.

SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/