Kazakhstan is my Motherland

Kazakhstan was established as the Republic of Kazakhstan in December 1991.The country is the second largest of the former

Soviet republics with a total land area of over 2.724 million square kilometres. This country shares its border with the Russian Federation to the north and north-west: to the east with China and to the south with the central Asian republics of Kirgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

      The Ural River flows through the western portion of Kazakhstan to the Caspian Sea. The central region of the country includes the Kazakh Steppe to the north and deserts of central Asia in the south-west.

     The country is rich with mineral resources such as copper, gold, iron, lead, nickel, silver, tin, uranium and zink with deposits of oil and natural gas.

    Kazakhstan’s largest city is Almaty which lies to the south-east of the country near the border with Kirgyzstan and China. Almaty was the capital until December 1997 when it was moved to Akmola, 850 kilometres to the north-west. In May 1998 Akmola was renamed Astana, the Kazakh word for capital.  Astana’s population stands currently at 500,000.