Ulan bator

It’s 11 below (-24C) outside but the stove is burning and baby Almasbek Toltalkhan is warm in his family’s yurt. His mother, Nursaule, scoops him from a crib engraved with pictures of coconut palms and joggles him on her knee while the doctor readies his shot. At 11 months old, Almasbek is just past the nebulous state of babyhood. He cannot say ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ but knows bainuu, the greeting with which Mongolians answer the phone, and he wears tartan felt pajamas. He also has a pug-like wheeze on every out-breath and has been hospitalized eight times since birth. “Our youngest is sick very often,” says Nursaule, 25, who like many Mongolians goes by her first name. Almasbek was initially diagnosed with bronchitis in September. Pneumonia followed, and the family ended up spending most of November and December in hospital. “We would go to the hospital for ten days of treatment. Then after four or five days at home, we would have to go back again,” she says. “Last time they took him into intensive care.” In 2016, Ulan Bator overtook both New Delhi and Beijing as the capital with the highest air pollution levels in the world. The city’s topography is one factor: like Beijing, Ulan Bator was built in a river valley and surrounding mountains trap smog like soup in a pan. The extreme climate is another cause. In the world’s coldest capital, the average January low is 27.4 below (-33C) but temperatures can dip beneath -40, the point at which Fahrenheit and Celsius intersect. Locals s...

• Mongolia If Mongolia’s yin is its pristine countryside, then Ulaanbaatar (UB; Улаанбаатар) harmonises as its vibrant yang. It's a sprawling, industrialised city of pulsating commerce, wild traffic, sinful nightlife and bohemian counterculture. The contrasts within the city are intriguing: Armani-suited businessmen rub shoulders with mohawked punks and del-clad nomads fresh off the steppes; one minute you’re dodging the path of a Hummer H2 and the next you’re entranced by chanting Buddhist monks at Gandan Khiid. It's the coldest capital in the world, but come summer the city bursts into life after slumbering through a long winter.

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Few cities in the world have experienced as much change over the past 20 years as Mongolia's capital, Ulan Bator. Home to around half of the nation's population and growing all the time, Ulan Bator has shrugged off the Communist era, developing a thriving youth culture (with a huge K-Pop music fanbase), and some fabulous dining experiences. It's also started to exploit the rich history of Mongolia, with monasteries, traditional theaters, and archaeological museums, creating a unique blend of the old, new, and the completely unpredictable. Whether you're headed for a yurt stay on the steppes or passing through to Beijing, Ulan Bator has plenty to offer.

Ulaanbaatar, formerly anglicised and still called as Ulan Bator, is the capital and largest city of The city is located slightly east of the centre of Mongolia on the Tuul River, a sub-tributary of the Selenge, in a valley at the foot of the mountain Bogd Khan Uul. As of October 2020, the population of Ulaanbaatar is about 1.5 million people. The city covers a total area of 4,704 square kilometers (1,816 square miles). The average altitude is 1,350 metres (4,429 feet) above sea level. Human habitation at the site of Ulaanbaatar dates from the Lower Paleolithic, with a number of sites on Bogd Khan, Buyant-Ukhaa and Songinokhairkhan mountains, revealing tools which date from 300,000 years ago to 40,000–12,000 years ago. These Upper Paleolithic people hunted mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, the bones of which are found abundantly around Ulaanbaatar. The city was founded in 1639 as a nomadic Buddhist monastic centre. It settled permanently at its present location, the junction of the Tuul and Selbe rivers, in 1778. In 1911 when Mongolia first proclaimed its independence from capital of Outer Mongolia and was renamed Niislel Khuree (Capital Camp). In 1918 it was invaded by the Chinese and three years later by the Russians. When Mongolia was declared a people’s republic in 1924, the city was renamed Ulaanbaatar, which means “Red Hero.” With Soviet help, a new city was planned, and its central feature was Sühbaatar Square, site of a Neoclassic government building, a history museum,...