Kazakhstan Weather and Climate
According to COUNTRYAAH, Kazakhstan is in the center of the Eurasian continent; Europe and Asia are connected there in the truest sense of the word, because the part of the state west of the Ural River belongs to Europe according to the old definition, the bulk of the territory to Asia.
Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world with an area of 2,724,900 km². It extends from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Altai in the east and from the Siberian lowlands in the north to the Kyzyl-Kum desert and the heights of the Tien Shan in the south. Its west-east extension is approx. 3,000 km, from its northernmost to the southernmost point it is approx. 2,000 km.
Kazakhstan is a landlocked country. It borders China (1,469 km), Kyrgyzstan (980 km), Turkmenistan (380 km), Uzbekistan (2,300 km), Russia (6,467 km).
Population
The population is very diverse from an ethnic point of view, being made up of 57.2% Kazakhs, 27.2% Russians, 3.1% Ukrainians, 2.7% Uzbeks, 1.6% Tatars, 1.6% Germans, 1.5% Uyghurs, 0.7% Belarusians and various other minority groups: a paradoxical situation as the official ethnic group, the Kazakh, is in fact a minority. However, vigorous migratory movements, following the dissolution of the USSR, have removed a good number of residents of Russian and Ukrainian origin from Kazakhstan. Most of the population is Russian-speaking and the decision by the Kazakhstan Parliament, in 1995, to make Kazakh the only state language does not seem to have facilitated the settlement of disputes. In any case, the problem soon boiled down to the negotiation of a modus vivendi between the two main groups. This did not prevent that, between 1992 and 1993, in the uncertainty of the solution that would be reached, several thousand Russians left Kazakhstan, effectively depriving it of most of the leading and intermediate cadres. In more recent years, it has become increasingly evident that Russia had regained a prominent role compared to Kazakhstan (in the economic, political and military fields), the exodus of the Russians has become less intense, even if relations between the two states and between the two nationalities they did not return cordial at least until 1994; at the same time, the return of many Kazakhs from other former Soviet countries has led the Kazakh component to exceed 44% of the resident population; a subsequent wave of emigration further increased the share of Kazakhs. Kazakhstan has a very low density (66 residents / km2) and a strong rural component; the urbanization rate is however the highest among those in Central Asia (56%). Major cities, or Astana, are Almaty (which was the capital until 1997), Qaraghandy, Shymkent, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Semipalatinsk, Džambul, Petropavlovsk and Pavlodar.
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Climate
Temperatures and rainfall vary on the size of the country regionally strong. However, the great distance from the world’s oceans leads everywhere to a decidedly continental climate with hot, dry summers compared to Central Europe, which abruptly change into very cold, low-precipitation winters. In the north it can get down to minus 45 ° C in winter, felt even more intensely by the strong wind, the Buran. In the southern areas it remains a little milder in winter, but the average temperature in summer is 30 ° C. However, the consequences of climate change have also been observed in Kazakhstan in recent years.
