Ulaanbaatar
capital and largest city of Mongolia
Ulaanbaatar is the capital and largest city of Mongolia. It has a population of 1.79 million, and is the coldest capital city in the world by average yearly temperature. The municipality is located in north central Mongolia at an elevation of about 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) in a valley on the Tuul River. The city was founded in 1639 as a nomadic Buddhist monastic centre, changing location 29 times, and was permanently settled at its modern location in 1778.
During its early years, as Örgöö (anglicized as Urga), it became Mongolia's preeminent religious centre and seat of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the spiritual head of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia. Following the regulation of Qing-Russian trade by the Treaty of Kyakhta in 1727, a caravan route between Beijing and Kyakhta opened up, along which the city was eventually settled. With the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the city was a focal point for independence efforts, leading to the proclamation of the Bogd Khanate in 1911 led by the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, or Bogd Khan, and again during the communist revolution of 1921. With the proclamation of the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924, the city was officially renamed Ulaanbaatar and declared the country's capital.
Modern urban planning began in the 1950s, with most of the old ger districts replaced by Soviet-style flats. In 1990, Ulaanbaatar was the site of large demonstrations that led to Mongolia's transition to democracy and a market economy.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ulaanbaatar” as capital and largest city of Mongolia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as capital and largest city of Mongolia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23430. VIAF identifies the subject as 164650599. The Library of Congress control number is n82211486. Authority coordinates are 47.921, 106.906. 4 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1639, 1778, 1727 and 1911.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ulaanbaatar” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.