About Mongolia

A landlocked country between Russia and China, roughly the size of Western Europe, with fewer than 3.5 million people and around 60 million head of livestock. Close to a third of the population still lives a mobile or semi-mobile herding life. That single fact shapes almost everything a visitor experiences.

Quick facts

Capital	Ulaanbaatar
Language	Mongolian, written in Cyrillic; traditional script in ceremonial use
Currency	Mongolian tugrik (MNT)
Population	Approximately 3.5 million
Area	1,564,000 square kilometres
Time zone	UTC+8 in most of the country
Religion	Predominantly Tibetan Buddhism, with shamanic traditions and a Kazakh Muslim minority in the west

People and nomads

Herding is not a heritage performance here; it is a working economy. Families move between seasonal pastures with their animals, living in a ger that can be taken down and rebuilt in a couple of hours. Hospitality to travellers is a practical necessity in a country this empty, which is why a stranger arriving at a ger is offered tea before anyone asks who they are.

The five snouts: horse, camel, cattle and yak, sheep and goat
Seasonal movement between winter shelter and summer pasture
The ger: a felt and lattice structure that has not needed redesigning in centuries
Hospitality customs that a visitor is expected to take part in, not observe

Culture and heritage

The empire of the thirteenth century is the story most visitors arrive with, and it is worth taking seriously: a system of governance, communication and trade that reorganised much of Eurasia. But the living culture is closer to hand. Throat singing and the morin khuur, the felt and silver traditions, and the Buddhist monastic revival after 1990 are all things you can encounter directly.

Throat singing, the long song, and the morin khuur or horsehead fiddle. Best experienced as an evening performance with someone to explain what you are hearing, which is why we built it as a module.

Ger construction, felt making, leather and horse tack, painted woodwork and silverwork. All five are still working trades, and all five can be learned hands-on.

Monasteries were largely destroyed in the 1930s and have been rebuilt since 1990. Shamanic practice runs alongside Buddhism rather than in opposition to it.

Governance, military organisation, trade routes and belief. Told well, it connects directly to the steppe life you see from the vehicle window.

Nature and landscape

Four broad zones sit inside one country: desert and semi-desert in the south, steppe grassland through the centre and east, forest and taiga in the north, and high mountains in the west. Crossing several of them in one journey is the reason the Flagship route takes twelve days.

Wild horses, wild asses and gazelles on the open plains
Marmots, raptors and steppe birdlife almost everywhere
Reindeer herding at the northern forest edge
Glaciers and high peaks in the Altai range

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