Kazakhstan, located in central Asia, is in the top 10 largest countries in the world by land area, but because of its location, when viewed on a map, it is often seen as small.
The country, which has an area of 2,699,700 square kilometres, sits in between Russia, the world’s largest country by land area and China, the world’s third-largest country by land area, which makes it seem so small.
But actually, the size of the country is so huge that it could stretch all the way from Ireland to Turkey and its land mass is bigger than the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Norway, and Finland combined.
Not only that, but its furthest western point is closer to France than its furthest eastern point.
Despite it being so big, Kazakhstan has a small population of population of around 20 million people; its population density is fewer than six people per square kilometre, making it one of the lowest population densities in the world.
The reason why the population is so low is that a lot of the land in Kazakhstan is too dry, causing it to be inhabitable, making the northeast and southeast areas heavily concentrated.
A third of the country is taken up by The Kazakh Steppe. A steppe is characterised by large areas of grasslands and sandy regions.
The Kazakh Steppe is the largest in the world with an area of 804,450 square kilometres and only receiving between 200 – 400 mm of rain per year.
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