Size: Total 1,565,000 square kilometers.

Topography: Mountains and rolling plateaus vast semidesert and desert plains, 90 percent pasture or desert wasteland, less than 1 percent arable, 8 to 10 percent forested mountains in north, west and southwest Gobi, a vast desert in southeast Selenge river system in north.

Climate: Desert high, cold, dry, continental climate sharp seasonal fluctuations and variation little precipitation great diurnal temperature changes.

SOCIETY

Population: 2,125,463 in July 1989 in 1989, birth rate 35.1 per 1,000 death rate 7.6 per 1,000. Approximately 51 percent live in urban areas nearly 25 percent in Ulaanbaatar in 1986. In 1987 population density per square kilometer 1.36 sex ratio 50.1 percent male, 49.9 percent female as of 1986.

Ethnic Groups: Nearly 90 percent Mongol. Rest Kazakh (5.3 percent), Chinese (2 percent), Russian (2 percent) Tuvins (see Glossary), Uzbeks (see Glossary), Uighurs (see Glossary), and others (1.5 percent).

Languages: Khalkha Mongol (official language), 90 percent minor languages include Turkic, Chinese, Russian, and Kazakh.

Religion: Predominantly Yellow Sect of Tibetan Buddhism (Lamaism) about 4 percent Muslim (primarily in southwest), some shamanism. Limited religious activity although freedom of religion guaranteed in 1960 Constitution.

Health: Life expectancy in 1989 sixty-three for males, sixty-seven for females. Infant mortality 49 to 53 per 1,000 112 hospitals in 1986 with a ratio of 110 hospital beds and 24.8 doctors per 10,000 population. Overall free medical care medical specialists and facilities concentrated in urban areas close cooperation with Soviet Union in medical research and training.

Education: Four years compulsory elementary school overall and four years compulsory secondary school in all but most remote areas two-year noncompulsory general secondary. Higher education: one university, seven other institutes of higher learning. In 1985 primary and secondary education: 28 specialized secondary schools, 40 vocational schools, 900 general education schools enrolling 435,900 students many Mongolian students at universities and technical schools in the Soviet Union and East European countries--approximately 11,000 studied abroad in 1986-87. In the late 1980s, educational reform plans announced for 11-year system of general education with traditional emphasis. In 1985 national literacy rate estimated at 80 percent 100 percent claimed by government.

Media: Thirty-five newspapers and thirty-eight magazines published in 1986.

Data as of June 1989