INTRODUCTION TO KAZAKHSTAN

Geography:
Kazakhstan , country in Central Asia, with a small portion in Europe, south of Russia and west of China. The total area is 2,717,300 sq km (1,049,200 sq mi). Kazakhstan is the second-largest member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an organization of republics that once were part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The capital is Astana, and the largest city is Almaty.

Land and Resources
Kazakhstan is a vast, generally low-lying plain, fringed by mountains on the east and southeast. Mountainous areas along the border with Kyrgyzstan in the south reach a height of nearly 5000 m (nearly 16,400 ft); areas near the Caspian Sea, the lowest point in Europe, lie below sea level.

Kazakhstan's climate is characterized by great variations in temperature. Throughout the country precipitation is meager. Deserts and semideserts cover more than two-thirds of the surface area.

Population:
Kazakhstan has a population (1997 estimate) of 16,881,793. Although they are the single largest ethnic group in Kazakhstan, Kazaks constitute an overall minority in their own country, with 43.2 percent of the total population. Until recently, Russians, the next largest group, even outnumbered Kazaks in Kazakhstan. The official state language is Kazakh, a Turkic language, although Russian is spoken by more than three-fourths of the people.

Economy:
Industry, particularly mining, constitutes the largest branch of the economy. Kazakhstan contains the largest reserves of chromium, tungsten, copper, lead, and zinc ores in the former USSR. Agricultural yields, formerly the basis of the economy, have fluctuated in the 1990s, but Kazakhstan remains a major producer of wheat.

In 1994 Kazakhstan signed an agreement that established economic contacts with the European Union (EU). The country's unit of currency is the tenge (67.30 tenge equal U.S.$1; 1996).