|RNational holiday:|N Independence Day, August 31.
|RNature and climate:|N Mountainous country in Central Asia. The Tian Shan Mountains in the north and east, reach more than 7000 m.a.s.l. In southeast the Pamir-Alay range.
Much of the area is covered by glaciers and the population live in the three main-valleys the Fergana, the Chu and the Talas.
Vegetation is mainly steppe but the many valleys are fertile.
|RPeople:|N Kirghiz (Kyrgyz) 52%, Russian 22%, Uzbek 13%, Ukrainian 3%, German 2%.
The Kirghiz are mentioned in Turkic inscriptions on the 8th century.
|REconomy:|N Agriculture and stockraising are the main industries. Agriculture is highly mechanized and effective and produces food enough for the population. Most important crops are wheat, sugar beets, tobacco and cotton.
Stockraising is very extensive and gives meat as well as raw material for a huge textile industry.
Kyrgyzstan is rich on minerals such as coal, lead, uranium, oil, natural gas, mercury and antimony as well as hydro electric power.
Manufacturing is well developed with heavy metal works, steel works, mechanical manufacturing as well as food processing and textile factories.
|RHistory:|N The nomadic Kirghiz people are mentioned the first time in the 8th century and wandered around in central Asia in the following centuries. They settled in the area now know as Kyrgyzstan in the 13th century.
This area was controlled by Mongols, later by Kalmyks, Manchus in the mid 17th century, the Kokand khanate in the 19th century and the Russians, in 1868.
A period of great confusion and many fightings followed the Bolshevik revolution 1917 and Sovjet power was established 1919, but the fighting continued until 1922.
Kyrgyzstan first was a part of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and in 1936 the Kyrgyz Sovjet Socialist Republic was established.
In the 1920:s and 1930:s land reforms and collectivization of the agriculture ended the traditional nomadic way of life, but later the nomadic stockraising has been reestablished as the most effective way of using the Kyrgyz natural resources.
In 1990 the were severe clashes between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek population in the Fergana Valley.
The independent republic Kyrgyzstan was proclaimed in December 1991 when the Alma-Alta Declaration of Commonwealth of Independent States was signed.
