Ulaanbaatar

Ulan Bator or Ulaanbaatar "Red Hero" is the capital and largest city of Mongolia. The city is an independent municipality, not part of any province, and its population (2008) is just over one million.

Located in the north central part of the country, the city lies at an elevation of about 1,310 metres (4,300 ft) in a valley on the Tuul River. It is the cultural, industrial, and financial heart of the country. It is also the center of Mongolia's road network, and connected by rail to the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Chinese railway network.

The city was founded in 1639 as an initially nomadic Buddhist monastic centre. In 1778 it settled permanently at its present location, the junction of the Tuul and Selbe rivers. Before that it had changed location twenty-eight times, with each location being chosen ceremonially. In the twentieth century, Ulan Bator grew into a major manufacturing centre.

Ulan Bator has had numerous names in its history. From 1639–1706, it was known as Örgöö (also spelled Urga) (Mongolian: Өргөө, residence), and from 1706–1911 as Ikh Khüree (Mongolian: Их = "great", Хүрээ = "camp"), Da Khüree (from Chinese: 大 dà = "great") or simply Khüree/Hüree. Upon independence in 1911, with both the secular government and the Bogd Khan's palace present, the city's name changed to Niislel Khüree (Mongolian: Нийслэл = "capital", Хүрээ = "camp"). It is called Bogdiin Khüree (camp/monastery of the Bogd) in the folk song Praise of Bogdiin Khuree.

When the city became the capital of the new Mongolian People's Republic in 1924, its name was changed to Ulaanbaatar (Улаанбаатар, classical script: , Ulaɣan Baɣatur, literally "red hero"), in honor of Mongolia's national hero Damdin Sükhbaatar, whose warriors, shoulder-to-shoulder with the Soviet Red Army, liberated Mongolia from Ungern von Sternberg's troops and Chinese occupation. His statue still adorns Ulan Bator's central square.

In Europe and North America, Ulan Bator was generally known as Urga (from Örgöö) or sometimes Kuren (from Khüree) or Kulun (from 庫倫, the Chinese transcription of Khüree) before 1924, and Ulan Bator afterwards, after the Russian: Улан-Батор. The Russian spelling is different from the Mongolian because it was defined phonetically, and the Cyrillic script was only introduced in Mongolia seventeen years later. By Mongols, the city was nicknamed Aziin Tsagaan Dagina (White Maiden of Asia) in the late 20th century. It is now sometimes sarcastically called Utaanbaatar(Smog Hero), due to the heavy layer of smog in winter. See Names of Asian cities in different languages for other names of Ulan Bator.

Ulan Bator is located at about 1350 meters (4430 feet) above sea level, slightly east of the center of Mongolia on the Tuul River, a subtributary of the Selenge, in a valley at the foot of the mountain Bogd Khan Uul.

Due to its high elevation, relatively high latitude, location hundreds of kilometres from any coast, and the effects of the Siberian anticyclone, Ulan Bator is the coldest national capital in the world, with a monsoon-influenced, subarctic semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSk) with brief, warm summers and long, very cold and dry winters. Precipitation, at an annual total of 216 millimetres (8.50 in) is heavily concentrated in the warmer months. It has an average annual temperature of −0.7 °C (30.7 °F). The city lies in the zone of discontinuous permafrost, which means that building is difficult in sheltered aspects that preclude thawing in the summer, but easier on more exposed ones where soils fully thaw. Suburban residents live in traditional yurts that do not protrude into the soil.