Nalaikh ( ) is one of nine

districts of Ulaanbaatar Ulaanbaatar is divided into nine düüregs or municipal districts: Baganuur, Bagakhangai, Bayangol, Bayanzürkh, Chingeltei, Khan Uul, Nalaikh, Songino Khairkhan and Sükhbaatar. Each district is subdivided into khoroos, of which there ...

. It has an area of 68,700 hectares and a population of 39,579 in 2022 (26,529 in 2005). A former

coal-mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extrac ...

town, it is subdivided into 8

subdistrict A subdistrict or sub-district is an administrative division that is generally smaller than a district. Equivalents * Administrative posts of East Timor, formerly Portuguese-language * Kelurahan, in Indonesia * Mukim, a township in Brunei, Ind ...

s, incorporating Shokhoi, Arjanchivlan, the Terelj holiday center, and other residential areas, as well as a former Soviet military cantonment, including an airfield. Nalaikh is linked to Ulaanbaatar by a 43-kilometer

narrow-gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter cur ...

line, built in July 1938. The line had three stations (Nalaikh; Amgalan, a Ulaanbaatar suburb; and Kombinat, the city's industrial combine) and operated 14 steam locomotives, 16 passenger carriages, 70 goods wagons, 10 platform wagons, and nine fuel tank wagons. Nalaikh now has a broad-gauge branch line (via Khonkhor) to the

Trans-Mongolian Railway The Trans-Mongolian Railway (, ) connects Ulan-Ude on the Trans-Siberian Railway in Buryatia, Russia, with Ulanqab in Inner Mongolia, China, via Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. It was completed in 1956, and runs from northwest to south ...

. The Kapitalnaya shaft went into operation in 1951, and at full capacity produced 600,000 metric tons of coal a year. Nalaikh gained town status in 1962, and was established as a district of Ulaanbaatar in 1992. Since the closure of the coal mine in the 1990s, the district has had a high rate of unemployment.

Tourist attractions

* Nalaikh Coal Mine * Nalaikh Mosque

Notable people

* Kyokutenho Masaru – sumo wrestler * Puntsagiin Sükhbat

References

{{Mongolia-geo-stub