The Republic of Kazakhstan is a former Soviet Socialist Republic of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It is located in Central Asia, and is bounded on the west by the Volga River and the Caspian Sea, on the east by the Altai mountains, on the north by the Siberian plain and on the south by the Central Asian deserts.
The Republic of Kazakhstan declared independence from the USSR in 1991, and was recognized by the new government of the Commonwealth of Independent States as one of its founding republics. Kazakhstan has a president and a legislature. The capital is Astana. The country covers a total area of 2,717,300 square kilometers, twice the size of the state of Alaska, and was the second largest of the former Soviet Socialist Republics.
The official language is Kazakh, but Russian is the language used for official functions in state and local government. The estimated population as of July 2007 was 15,284,929. Native Kazakhs are an ethnic mixture of Mongol and Turkic nomadic tribes. Due to an influx of Russian and other non-Kazakh immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s, non-Kazakhs now outnumber natives. The dominant religions of the population are Muslim 47 percent, Russian Orthodox 44 percent, Protestant 2 percent, and other 7 percent.
The Baikonur Cosmodrome, the main launch site of the Russian Federation’s space program, is located in Kazakhstan. Petroleum reserves under the Caspian Sea are currently being exploited for significant profits.
Web Sites
Catalog
Search the library's catalog for Kazakhstan.
Databases
Enter Kazakhstan in these databases: