About Kazakhstan
Explore this Kazakhstan map to learn everything you want to know about this country. Learn about Kazakhstan location on the world map, official symbol, flag, geography, climate, postal/area/zip codes, time zones, etc. Check out Kazakhstan history, significant states, provinces/districts, & cities, most popular travel destinations and attractions, the capital city’s location, facts and trivia, and many more.
Full name: | Republic of Kazakhstan |
Capital City: | Astana |
Language: | Kazakh, Russian (official) |
Currency: | Tenge (T) |
Religion: | Muslim, Russian Orthodox, Protestant |
National Anthem: | My Kazakhstan |
Newspaper: | The Almaty Herald, Ak Zhayk, Asian Express |
Places to Visit: | Astana, Zailiysky Alatau, Almatinsky Nature Reserve, Köl-Say Lakes, Kozha Akhmed Yasaui Mausoleum. |
Transport: | Several flights take you to Almaty through Istanbul, Vienna , Frankfurt and Moscow (Russia). Take the railway route line from Moscow-Almaty. Or opt for ferry ride from Baku to Aktau in Kazakhstan once in a weekly. |
Shopping: | Kazakh carpets, embroidered yurt hangings, hand woven yurt straps, gossamer knitted shawls. |
Kazakhstan, being a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States is a wonderful destination to venture to. The province boasts of wide spread landscapes, spellbinding train rides and eye catching terrains along with wonderful scenaries that is surely going to take your breath away.
Physical Map Of Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan covers a total land area of about 2.7 million square kilometers and stands in the ninth position as the largest nation in the world. It can be compared to Western Europe as far as size is concerned. Kazakhstan is engulfed by Russia, the People’s Republic of China, and by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, with coastline bordering along the Caspian Sea. Some of the prominent cities within Kazakhstan are Astana, Almaty, Karaganda, Shymkent, Semey and Turkestan.
Kazakhstan stretches across a major portion of the land area covering:
- The region of Caspian Sea to the Altay Mountains (west – east), and
- The Western Siberia plains to Central Asia deserted region (north- south).
One third of the terrains of Kazakhstan are covered with the Kazakh Steppe or semi-desert steppe region mostly comprising of grasslands and sands all over. Some of the major rivers include the Aral Sea, Irtysh River, Ishim River, Ili River, Lake Balkhash, and Lake Zaysan and many others.
Location Of Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan is nestled in Central Asia along the northwestern region of China. Expanding to the northern and central Eurasia, a portion of the area rests along the Ural River towards the western front along the eastern-most end of Europe.
Flag Of Kazakhstan
The flag of Kazakhstan was officially accepted during the month of June 4, 1992. It is designed with a steppe eagle that lies underneath a golden sun emitting 32 rays from the central location, lying just behind a sky blue colored background. The hoist side of the flag is inscribed with a striking gold-ornamented pattern that defines the cultural inclination of the old khanate and the Kazakh community. The blue background denotes the Turkic peoples where the color blue carry a religious connotation relating to the sky deity named as Gok-Tanry. The sky carries a feeling of freedom with it. The golden eagle denotes the Genghis Khan Empire that makes the natives proud about their history and heritage.
Climate Of Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan experiences continental climatic conditions subjected to extremes like warm and humid during the summers and chilly and colder during the winters.
Jaunt to this location during the month of April to June or September to October when the daytime temperature are cozy enough.
There is variation in the level of down pouring in the region of arid and semi-arid environment. Hikers and mountain climbers would love to visit the place during the summer months.
Flora And Fauna Of Kazakhstan
The region of Kazakhstan is covered with forest-steppe and coniferous woods from all ends.
There are 515 species of plants, 500 assorted ranges of birds, 178 animals, 49 types of reptiles, 12 amphibians with 107 ranges of fishes.
The rarest animal species residing in Kazakhstan are Transcaspian urial, long-needle hedgehog, wild cats like caracal and desert cat, goitred gazelles, birds like black-tailed sand grouse, Pallas sand grouse, wheatear and larks.
Usturt plateau is famous for wormwood and black saxauls. Tian Shan is known for fur woods where one can catch up with sights like the Tian-Shan brown bear, Siberian ibex, birds like lammergeyer, snow cock, snow vulture, griffon vulture, golden eagle, finches, chough and Alpine chough. Among the taiga woods placed along the Altai mountainous region of Kazakhstan watch out for giant moose, maral, musk deer, chipmunk and many other species.
Birds like the waterfowl, fish hawk, black stork, gull, sea swallow, imperial eagle, falcons and herons rest along this region. One may even catch up with reptiles like the central Asian turtle, toad agama and gecko.
People Of Kazakhstan
The population of Kazakhstan is constituted with several ethnic groups mainly:
- The Kazakhs, covering about 53% of the inhabitants, while
- The Russians covering 30% of the residents.
Several other groups reside within the region of Kazakhstan like the Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Germans, Chechens, and Uyghurs – belonging to the Russian authority.
Among the minority cluster, the Russian Germans, Poles, Romanians, Ukrainians and Russian political opponents were expelled to the region of Kazakhstan during the reign of Stalin. The chief religious beliefs allocated here are Sunni Islam, Russian Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Being a bilingual country: the Kazakh language, known as the state language is spoken widely. But, the Russian dialect is used for any kind of official purpose.
Arts, Culture And Music Of Kazakhstan
- Art: Silk painting emerged within the region as the most attractive art form where painters depicted Kazakh family, their love legends, their yurt, their cultural life, Kazakh women and men along with other aspects relating to the region.
- Culture: The Kazak natives dwell within a tent carved out with willow wood and felt which are popularly known as yurt. The local natives resort to animal husbandry and follow a nomadic customary method of living. The guests are treated with great honor and are served with delicacy made of freshly killed lamb.
- Music: Kazaks has a formulated ethnicity that is based upon the nomadic rustic culture. Kazakhstan is known to possess musical hubs like the Kazakh State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kazakh National Opera, Kazakh State Kurmangazy Orchestra of Folk Instruments, and Kazakh State Chamber Orchestra. Get a rustic musical culture, which shares common similarities with the Uzbek and Kyrgyz folk music where one may come across wandering lyric poet, bards, healers and spiritualist those who are called as akyn within the region. The akyn are known to carry musical instruments like qobuz or dombra along with them.
The other native musical instruments are kylkobyz, sherter, sybyzgy, saszyrnay, shankobyz along with kobizovaia, sibiz-govaia, and dombrovaia. These folk music are based on the prehistoric folklore and spiritual beliefs.
Economy Of Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan has in store massive reserves of fossil fuels with country largely depending on the agricultural industry whereby the major contributions were made by livestock and grains.
Kazakhstan economic growth mainly relies on the industrial division where extraction and processing of natural resources takes place. The machine-building sector of Kazakhstan focuses mainly on the manufacturing of equipments, tractors, agricultural equipment, and defense related substance. Kazakhstan witnessed a major growth during the year 2000-01 when the country’s economy went through an improvisation stage mainly in the energy sector along with reforms made in the economic sector, with a boom in good harvests, and overseas investment. The export within the country considerably rose up with the introduction of the Caspian Consortium pipeline, especially with the support of China that stretched along the region of western Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oilfield to the Black Sea during the year 2001.
An industrial policy was designed to broadened the horizon of the economy along with it several policies were issued in order to diminish the effects of foreign investment and foreign workforce within the country.