Discovering Mongolia: Geography, Climate, and Nomadic Herding Lifestyle

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Geography and Climate of Mongolia
3. Nomadic Herding Lifestyle in Mongolia
4. Historical Factors Affecting Mongolia's Population and Development
5. Mongolia's Dependence on Russia and China
6. The Future of Mongolia's Independence

The Fascinating Country of Mongolia: A Look into its Geography, Climate, and Nomadic Herding Lifestyle

Mongolia is a country that is often overlooked due to its small population and remote location. However, it is a country that is rich in history and culture, and its vast empty lands make it one of the most unique places on Earth. In this article, we will explore the geography, climate, and nomadic herding lifestyle of Mongolia, as well as the historical factors that have affected its population and development. We will also examine Mongolia's dependence on Russia and China and the future of its independence.

Geography and Climate of Mongolia

Mongolia is a huge country, more than twice the size of Texas. If You placed it over the United States, it would basically cover the entire historical south of the country, spanning from Philadelphia in the East to Dallas in the West. However, despite its size, Mongolia is quite literally the emptiest country on the planet. It has a tiny population of just around 3.3 million people who live across all of that land, which is basically just the same amount of people as live around San Diego in California. Mongolia's average population density is just around 2.1 people per square kilometer of land, which is by far the absolute lowest of any sovereign country in the world.

Mongolia is surrounded on all of its sides by hundreds of kilometers of land separating it from the ocean, making it the largest landlocked country in the world that doesn't have access to an internal sea. In theory, Kazakhstan is substantially larger than Mongolia and technically also classified as landlocked, but Kazakhstan also enjoys a nearly 1900 kilometer long coastline with the internal Caspian Sea across which it can conduct maritime trade with Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkmenistan. Mongolia, on the other HAND, possesses no such direct access to any large bodies of Water, and partially because of that, in a whole bunch of other factors, Mongolia is quite literally the emptiest country on the planet.

Mongolia's geography and climate are unique and challenging. The country's territory exists across most of the high Mongolian Plateau, a region of high elevation across Central Asia that is contained on all of its sides by even higher mountain ranges. The elevation across the Mongolian Plateau ranges from a thousand to 1500 meters above sea level, and Mongolia's borders within the high Plateau place it nearly 800 kilometers away from the nearest oceanic body of water, the Yellow Sea. Because of the Mongolian Plateau's high elevation and distance away from the Indo-Pacific, deep within the Eurasian continental interior, moist monsoon winds that bring rainfall from the Pacific rarely, if ever, are able to carry all of their moisture all the way into the Mongolian Plateau.

To The North, the Mongolian Plateau also sits immediately beneath Siberia, which dramatically influences its climate and ability to contain people. Beginning around every August, the days in Northern Asia steadily begin growing shorter and shorter as winter approaches, which causes the cold and dry air blowing into Siberia from the frozen Arctic Ocean to begin growing even colder. The air that then collects over Siberia then grows even colder than the air over the Arctic Ocean because the air over the Arctic generally forms over sea ice that radiates heat better than the cold Tundra environment of Siberia does. Generally from September to April, then every single year, this collection of very cold and dry Siberian air and high atmospheric pressure gets transferred across Northern Eurasia and particularly gets pushed into the Mongolian Plateau, which means that winters in Mongolia are nearly always very cold and very dry.

Nomadic Herding Lifestyle in Mongolia

Because of all these factors, only about 0.4 percent of Mongolia's vast amount of land is even considered arable and suitable for crop cultivation and agriculture. Instead, the vast and wide-open empty steps covered in grasses are far more ideally suited for herding and ranging livestock, which can more easily move around than settled farms and cities can. Nomadic herders can quickly take their livestock, families, and gers across the flat step to different areas more suited to the seasons. During the winter, herders will Gather their livestock in valleys where the mountains around them protect them from the cold Siberian winds, and then during the summer, they'll relocate to the wide-open grass-covered steps to better feed their herds.

This is all why, since time immemorial, now for thousands of years, the people of the Mongolian Plateau have predominantly always been nomadic herders, and still to this day, about 65 percent of Mongolia's land is used for pasturage and herding animals, and about a third of the population continues to live the nomadic herding lifestyle that all of their ancestors would have found pretty familiar because it is simply the lifestyle that the unchanging geography and climate forces upon this part of the world.

Historical Factors Affecting Mongolia's Population and Development

Mongolia's history has been Shaped by a variety of factors, including its geography, climate, and the actions of its neighbors. In the early 13th century, Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes, and for generations afterward, the Mongols and their horses thundered all across and around the Eurasian step, conquering everything in their wake. However, over time, from this APEX, the empire quickly began steadily splintering into different sections as infighting between the Mongols themselves began to take hold.

The Mongol Yuan Dynasty would Continue ruling over China for nearly another century until 1368 when they were subsequently overthrown by the Han-led Ming Dynasty. The Mongols who once ruled China then retreated back to the Mongolian Plateau of their ancestors and formed a rump state known as the Northern Yuan, which largely spanned over the modern-day country of Mongolia, Inner Mongolia (a part of China today), and parts of southern Siberia that now belong to Russia.

By the early 17th century, the Mongol Golden Horde that had ruled over Russia and the Ilkhanate that had ruled over Iran had each long since collapsed, and the Manchu tribes of Manchuria were beginning to consolidate their control over present-day Inner Mongolia from the Northern Yuan. By 1644, the Northern Yuan had splintered into various different independent continents. The Russian Empire was expanding across Siberia, and the Manchu launched a full-Scale invasion of the Ming Dynasty and overthrew them, subsequently leading to the establishment of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty.

From there, the Qing initiated a series of further invasions and conquests into what they called Outer Mongolia in 1687, Tibet in 1723, and into modern-day Xinjiang by 1755. However, as the largely Han Chinese soldiers began advancing further into the Mongol-ruled lands, a similar process began taking place as between the Europeans and the Native Americans in the New World. The Mongols, similar to many of the Native Americans, had Never lived in cramped, sedentary cities with their livestock and were permanently nomadic and on the go across the step, meaning that they had never lived with the same kinds of diseases that had long plagued the settled Eurasian cities for thousands of years.

As such, the urban and settled Han Chinese had developed resistances to diseases like smallpox just like the Europeans had, and so when the Han Chinese marched deeper into the Mongolian Plateau in the later 17th century, they brought smallpox with them that devastated the local nomadic Mongolian populations who lacked any immunities to it. In much the same way that the Europeans brought smallpox to the New World that devastated the Native American populations, due to the combination of smallpox, military violence, and deliberate genocide ordered by the Qing Emperor himself in 1755, the Qing Dynasty's conquest of the Jungar Mongols in the 1750s resulted in an estimated 50 to 80 percent of the Jungar Mongol population getting completely wiped out, or somewhere between half a million and 800 thousand people.

Then, as the Russian Empire continued expanding across Siberia to the North, the Qing grew increasingly worried about their relatively sparsely populated hold over Inner and Outer Mongolia and began encouraging large-scale resettlements of ethnic Han to the Mongolian Plateau in order to reinforce their demographic hold over the area, which had the effects of spreading more subtle diseases like smallpox and also spreading and reinforcing a new religion to the area, Tibetan Buddhism. Over a process that lasted for centuries, Tibetan Buddhism began establishing itself as the dominant power on the Mongolian Plateau and largely replaced the secular authority of the previous Khans.

The Tibetan Buddhist Church eventually came into possession of an estimated 20 percent of Mongolia's entire wealth, and on the harsh Mongolian steps where land was largely worthless, it was livestock, horses, and people who were considered to be far more valuable. Many of Mongolia's nomadic herders began dedicating their sons and their families to the various Buddhist monasteries, either out of personal religious conviction or in order to gain the favor of the preeminent legal and economic power of the step. By the early 20th century, there were hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries all across Mongolia, and an estimated one in three of all the men in the country were dedicated Buddhist monks who had sworn themselves to a life of celibacy, forsaking wives and children. That essentially meant that one in three men in the country had removed themselves from the dating and reproductive pool, placing even further constraints on the ability of the population to grow.

Mongolia's Dependence on Russia and China

Today, Mongolia remains a very big but very empty country wedged in between Russia and China, who have each spent much of the past several centuries taking their turns of controlling it. Mongolia effectively has no other choice but to tread very lightly in the years ahead as they continue balancing between the bear to their north and the dragon to their south. Mongolia is overwhelmingly dependent on Russia for their energy needs and overwhelmingly dependent on China for their primary export market.

98 percent of Mongolia's oil and gasoline resources are all simply imported from Russia, while 90 percent of Mongolia's exports by value are all sent south to China. The overwhelming majority of all of Mongolia's raw cashmere wool and their raw mineral resources like coal, copper, iron, and gold all get delivered to China for further processing in Chinese factories, meaning that Mongolia is overwhelmingly dependent on Russia for their energy needs and overwhelmingly dependent on China for their primary export market.

The Future of Mongolia's Independence

Mongolia's low population and empty countryside make it a susceptible target to its two significantly larger neighbors. If Mongolia refuses all cooperation with China and Russia, it is likely that Mongolia's 3.3 million people and its vast empty lands would simply be taken over by force once again, just as they were more than 300 years ago. That is why effectively Mongolia has no other choice but to tread very lightly in the years ahead as they continue balancing between the bear to their north and the dragon to their south.

As Russia grows increasingly authoritarian with over military aggression in Europe and as China remains very authoritarian itself, with a potential attack on Taiwan looming, for how much longer can Mongolia truly be said to have a completely independent foreign policy from both of them?