Everything you need to know about Kazakhstan
Explore Kazakhstan from the Caspian coast and open steppe to the Altai and Tian Shan. Learn its regions, cities and waters, discover fifteen sights and the history behind them, then practise Kazakh and Russian. Kazakh is the state language, while Russian is also widely used. Choose a region to explore: distances across this country are immense.
Read it, then make it stick
Geography of Kazakhstan
Caspian shores, open steppe and mountain borders in the worldโs largest landlocked country.
Know the shape of the country
Start with seventeen regions and the separate cities of Astana, Almaty and Shymkent, including the regions created in 2022. Then place twenty-four cities and find four rivers, three lakes and the Caspian Sea. Zoom in for the small city areas. Baikonur has special leased status and appears in the cities round. Boundaries: UNHCR/OSM COD-AB 2024 via geokz, CC BY-IGO and ODbL. Rivers, lakes and context coastlines: Natural Earth, public domain. City coordinates are curated. These are generalised learning maps; the Caspian answer area does not show maritime claims.
Places worth visiting
Essential ยท Canyon
Charyn Canyon
Red sandstone towers fill the Valley of Castles beside the Charyn River. Follow the canyon floor and compare its shapes with the surrounding plateau.
Explore the Tian Shan lakes and Charyn Canyon near Almaty, the Timurid heritage of Turkistan and the northern steppe, then look west to Mangystauโs chalk cliffs. These fifteen places span a very large country, so choose a region before planning a route. Essential is our shortlist for a first trip, and worth a detour goes further. Select a pin to read about a place, then play the map and find them all.
Take Kazakh with you
Greetings and politeness
Hello, please, thank you, sorry: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of Kazakhstan, the countries marked guide have a page like this one, and every other has maps of its own.
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