Kazachstan

Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. 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 coastline along the Caspian Sea. Its capital is Astana, known as Nur-Sultan from 2019 to 2022. Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, was the country's capital until 1997. Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country, the largest and northernmost Muslim-majority country by land area, and the ninth-largest country in the world. It has a population of 19 million people, and one of the lowest population densities in the world, at fewer than 6 people per square kilometre (15 people per square mile).

The country dominates Central Asia economically and politically, generating 60 percent of the region's GDP, primarily through its oil and gas industry; it also has vast mineral resources. Officially, it is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage, and has the highest Human Development Index ranking in the region. Kazakhstan is a member state of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Organization of Turkic States, and the International Organization of Turkic Culture.

The territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic groups and empires. In antiquity, the ancient Iranian nomadic Scythians inhabited the land, and the Achaemenid Persian Empire expanded towards the southern territory of the modern country. Turkic nomads, who trace their ancestry to many Turkic states such as the First Turkic Khaganate and the Second Turkic Khaganate, have inhabited the country from as early as the 6th century. In the 13th century, the territory was subjugated by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. In the 15th century, as a result of disintegration of Golden Horde, the Kazakh Khanate was established on much of the lands that would later form the territory of modern Kazakhstan.

By the 18th century, Kazakh Khanate disintegrated into three '' jüz'' which were absorbed and conquered by the Russian Empire; by the mid-19th century, the Russians nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire and liberated all of the slaves that the Kazakhs had captured in 1859. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution and subsequent outbreak of the Russian Civil War, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganized several times. In 1936, it was established as the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union from 1988 to 1991. Human rights organizations have described the Kazakh government as authoritarian, and regularly describe Kazakhstan's human rights situation as poor.

Etymology

The English word ''Kazakh'', meaning a member of the Kazakh people, derives from . The native name is . It might originate from the Turkic word verb ''qaz-'', 'to wander', reflecting the Kazakhs' nomadic culture. The term 'Cossack' is of the same origin. The Persian suffix means "land" or "place of", so ''Kazakhstan'' () can be literally translated as "land of the wanderers".

In Turko-Persian sources, the term ''Özbek-Qazaq'' first appeared during the middle of the 16th century, in the ''Tarikh-i-Rashidi'' by Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, a Chagatayid prince of Kashmir. In this manuscript, the author locates Kazakh in the eastern part of ''Desht-i Qipchaq''. According to Vasily Bartold, the Kazakhs likely began using that name during the 15th century.

Though ''Kazakh'' traditionally referred only to ethnic Kazakhs, including those living in China, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and other neighbouring countries, the term is increasingly being used to refer to any inhabitant of Kazakhstan, including residents of other ethnicities.

History

Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era. The Botai culture (3700–3100 BC) is credited with the first domestication of horses. The Botai population derived most of their ancestry from a deeply European-related population known as Ancient North Eurasians, while also displaying some Ancient East Asian admixture. Pastoralism developed during the Neolithic, as the region's climate and terrain are best suited to a nomadic lifestyle. The population was Caucasoid during the Bronze and Iron Age period.

The Kazakh territory was a key constituent of the Eurasian trading Steppe Route, the ancestor of the terrestrial Silk Roads