21 provinces (aimags in Mongolian), the capital city (Ulaanbaatar), 3 large autonomous cities (Darkhan, Erdenet and Choir). The provinces are subdivided into soums, or districts of which there are 298. The biggest province is South Gobi Province (Umnugobi aimag) which occupies an area of 165,000sq.km. Due to its rigorous climatic conditions has the smallest population (only 42,400 people).

Known as “the land of blue sky”, Mongolia is a remarkable sunny country enjoying 250 sunny days a year. Mongolia has warm summers and extremely cold winters. The country has the world’s most typical continental climate with extreme diurnal and annual ranges of temperature. Average temperature in most of the country is below the freezing point from November to March and close to it in April and October. Winter nights of -40C occur most years (lowest recorded -55C at lake Uvs). Summer extremes reach as high as +40C in the Gobi Desert and +33C in Ulaanbaatar.