Travelstone: Ulaanbaatar

Ulaanbaatar Mongolia

Ulaanbaatar is the capital of Mongolia and the country’s most populous city, and is among the coldest capitals in the world. By 2008 its population had reached just over one million inhabitants. The city is notable for its Soviet-era architecture interspersed with Tibetan and Buddhist religious buildings. Ulaanbaatar was founded in 1649 as a monastic town called Urguu (known in the West as Urga or Urgà), which flourished in the 1860s largely because of its strategic location as a trading center between Russia and China. Mongolia declared its independence in 1911. When the city was designated the nation’s capital in 1924, it was renamed Ulaanbaatar, meaning “Red Hero” in Mongolian, in honor of the national hero Damdin Sükhbaatar. He helped liberate Mongolia from both Chinese rule and the forces of Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg while fighting alongside the Soviet Red Army. Sükhbaatar’s statue stands in the main square of Ulaanbaatar. Unlike many other cities in the region, Ulaanbaatar has not suffered large-scale war-related destruction, with the notable exception of the events surrounding the Battle of Urga in 1921, when Ungern-Sternberg’s forces defeated the 10,000-strong Chinese garrison that had occupied the city.

Recommended airport

Buyant-Ukhaa International Airport (ULN)

Points of interest

Shangri-La Ulaanbaatar

Nearby destinations

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Ulaanbaatar Mongolia