
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country mainly located in Central Asia with a smaller portion west of the Ural River in Eastern Europe. It covers a land area of 2,724,900 square kilometres, and shares land borders with Russia in the north, China in the east, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in the south while also adjoining a large part of the Caspian Sea in the southwest. Kazakhstan does not border Mongolia, although they are only 37 kilometers apart, separated by a short portion of the border between Russia and China. Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country, and the ninth-largest country in the world. It has a population of 18.8 million residents, and has one of the lowest population densities in the world, at fewer than 6 people per square kilometre. Since 1997, the capital is Nur-Sultan, formerly known as Astana. It was moved from Almaty, the country's largest city.