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Facts & Figures

President: Almazbek Atambayev (2011)

Prime Minister: Joomart Otorbayev (2014)

Total area: 73,861 sq mi (191,300 sq km)

Population (2014 est.): 5,604,212; (growth rate: 1.04%); birth rate: 23.3/1000; infant mortality rate: 28.71/1000; life expectancy: 70.06.

Capital and largest city (2011 est.): Bishkek, 839,000

Monetary unit: Som

More Facts & Figures

Flag of Kyrgyzstan
  1. Kyrgyzstan Main Page
  2. Corruption Allegations Weaken Longtime President
  3. Opposition Challenges President's Motives
  4. Deadly Protests Prompt Resignation of President Bakiyev
  5. Former Prime Minister Elected President


Kyrgyzstan (formerly Kirghizia) is a rugged country with the Tien Shan mountain range covering approximately 95% of the whole territory. The mountaintops are perennially covered with snow and glaciers. Kyrgyzstan borders Kazakhstan on the north and northwest, Uzbekistan in the southwest, Tajikistan in the south, and China in the southeast. The republic has the same area as the state of Nebraska.


Constitutional republic.


The native Kyrgyz are a Turkic people who first settled in the Tien Shan mountains. They were traditionally pastoral nomads. Due to extensive Russian colonization in the 1900s, Russian settlers were given much of the best agricultural land. This led to an unsuccessful and disastrous revolt by the Kyrgyz people in 1916. Kyrgyzstan became part of the Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in 1924 and was made an autonomous republic in 1926. It became a constituent republic of the USSR in 1936. The Soviets forced the Kyrgyz to abandon their nomadic culture and adopt modern farming and industrial production techniques.

Kyrgyzstan proclaimed its independence from the Soviet Union on Aug. 31, 1991. On Dec. 21, 1991, Kyrgyzstan joined the Commonwealth of Independent States. The country joined the UN and the IMF in 1992 and adopted a shock-therapy economic program. Voters endorsed market reforms in a referendum held in Jan. 1994, and in 1996, referendum voters overwhelmingly endorsed proposed constitutional changes that enhanced the power of the president.

There is an ethnic and economic divide between the more developed north with its Kyrgyz population and the impoverished south, which is made up of Uzbeks and a diverse group of other ethnicities. About 50% of the entire population lived below the poverty line in 2003.

Since 1999, several groups of radical Islamic gunmen, believed to be from Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, have led raids and kidnappings from base camps in Kyrgyzstan's mountains.

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