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The Kazakhs (Kazakh: қазақтар, qazaqtar, قازاقتار, ⓘ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
Oct 8, 2024 · Kazakh, Turkic-speaking people inhabiting Kazakhstan and the adjacent parts of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. They speak Kazakh, a northwestern (Kipchak) Turkic language, and are predominantly Sunni Muslims.
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Kazakhstan, landlocked country of Central Asia. It is bounded on the northwest and north by Russia, on the east by China, and on the south by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea, and Turkmenistan; the Caspian Sea bounds Kazakhstan to the southwest. Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central Asia and the ninth largest in the world. Between its most distant points, Kazakhstan measures about 1,820 miles (2,930 kilometres) east to west and 960 miles north to south. While Kazakhstan was not considered by authorities in the former Soviet Union to be a part of Central Asia, it does have physical and cultural geographic characteristics similar to those of the other Central Asian countries. The capital is Astana (formerly Nur-Sultan, Aqmola, and Tselinograd), in the north-central part of the country. Kazakhstan, formerly a constituent (union) republic of the U.S.S.R., declared independence on December 16, 1991.
Kazakhstan’s great mineral resources and arable lands have long aroused the envy of outsiders, and the resulting exploitation has generated environmental and political problems. The forced settlement of the nomadic Kazakhs in the Soviet period, combined with large-scale Slavic in-migration, strikingly altered the Kazakh way of life and led to considerable settlement and urbanization in Kazakhstan. The Kazakhs’ traditional customs uneasily coexist alongside incursions of the modern world.
Lowlands make up one-third of Kazakhstan’s huge expanse, hilly plateaus and plains account for nearly half, and low mountainous regions about one-fifth. Kazakhstan’s highest point, Mount Khan-Tengri (Han-t’eng-ko-li Peak) at 22,949 feet (6,995 metres), in the Tien Shan range on the border between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China, contrasts with the flat or rolling terrain of most of the republic. The western and southwestern parts of the republic are dominated by the low-lying Caspian Depression, which at its lowest point lies some 95 feet below sea level. South of the Caspian Depression are the Ustyurt Plateau and the Tupqaraghan (formerly Mangyshlak) Peninsula jutting into the Caspian Sea. Vast amounts of sand form the Greater Barsuki and Aral Karakum deserts near the Aral Sea, the broad Betpaqdala Desert of the interior, and the Muyunkum and Kyzylkum deserts in the south. Most of these desert regions support slight vegetative cover fed by subterranean groundwater.
Depressions filled by salt lakes whose water has largely evaporated dot the undulating uplands of central Kazakhstan. In the north the mountains reach about 5,000 feet, and there are similar high areas among the Ulutau Mountains in the west and the Chingiz-Tau Range in the east. In the east and southeast, massifs (enormous blocks of crystalline rock) are furrowed by valleys. The Altai mountain complex to the east sends three ridges into the republic, and, farther south, the Tarbagatay Range is an offshoot of the Naryn-Kolbin complex. Another range, the Dzungarian Alatau, penetrates the country to the south of the depression containing Lake Balkhash. The Tien Shan peaks rise along the southern frontier with Kyrgyzstan.
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Kazakhstan’s east and southeast possess extensive watercourses: most of the country’s 7,000 streams form part of the inland drainage systems of the Aral and Caspian seas and Lakes Balkhash and Tengiz. The major exceptions are the great Irtysh, Ishim (Esil), and Tobol rivers, which run northwest from the highlands in the southeast and, crossing Russia, ultimately drain into Arctic waters. In the west the major stream, the Ural (Kazakh: Zhayyq) River, flows into the Caspian Sea. In the south the waters of the once-mighty Syr Darya have, since the late 1970s, scarcely reached the Aral Sea at all.
The torrent of the Irtysh River pours some 988 billion cubic feet (28 billion cubic metres) of water annually into the vast West Siberian catchment area. In the late 1970s Soviet authorities developed extensive plans to tap the Irtysh River for use in irrigating the arid expanses of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, but the scheme was killed in 1986 because of the large investment required and concern for the project’s possible adverse ecological consequences. This left southern and western Kazakhstan, as before, greatly in need of additional water resources. Kazakhstan also suffers from the disastrous depletion and the contamination (by pesticides and chemical fertilizers) of the Syr Darya flow, on which the republic depends greatly for crop irrigation.
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Kazakhstan’s climate is sharply continental, and hot summers alternate with equally extreme winters, especially in the plains and valleys. Temperatures fluctuate widely, with great variations between subregions. Average January temperatures in northern and central regions range from −2 to 3 °F (−19 to −16 °C); in the south, temperatures are milder,...
Very fertile soils characterize the lands from far northern Kazakhstan down to the more infertile, alkaline soils of the middle and southern areas. The vast stretches of arable land in the northern plains are the most intensely cultivated and productive. Other cultivated areas fringe the mountains in the south and east; irrigation and reclamation, ...
The vegetation on plains and deserts includes wormwood and tamarisk, with feather grass on drier plains. Kazakhstan has very little wooded area, amounting to only about 3 percent of the territory. Many animals, including antelope and elk, inhabit the plains. The wolf, bear, and snow leopard, as well as the commercially important ermine and sable, a...
Mar 24, 2023 · Late 15th Century - With the formation of the Kazakh khanate, the Kazakhs emerge as a distinct ethnic group. Early 17th Century - Kazakhs split into three tribal unions, the Elder, Middle and...
Oct 24, 2024 · The Kazakhs are a nominally Muslim people. During much of their long nomadic period, the Kazakhs’ adherence to Islam remained informal and permissive. When they moved into settlements or sent their children to towns such as Sterlitamak or Bukhara for an education, that situation changed.
Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan, [b] officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, [c] is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a small portion of its territory in Eastern Europe. [d] It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, with a ...
Dec 23, 2021 · Ethnic Kazakhs derive from a mix of Turkic nomadic tribes that migrated to the region in the 15th century. The Kazakh steppe was conquered by the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Kazakhstan became a Soviet Republic in 1925.
