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MongoliaPopulation Distribution
The 1979 census showed that 51 percent of the population was
urban, and this percentage remained unchanged through 1986. Rural
population density in the mid-1980s was highest in the wellwatered regions of the north and the west and lowest in the arid
and desert areas of the south and the east. The country as a
whole averaged 1.36 people per square kilometer, with rural
densities in 1986 ranging from 1.9 people per square kilometer in
Bayan-Olgiy and Selenge
aymags (see Glossary) to 0.22
people per square kilometer in Omnogovi Aymag
(see
fig. 1). The
three largest cities--Ulaanbaatar, Darhan, and Erdenet--are in
north-central Mongolia, on or near the main railroad line and the
Selenge Moron or its major tributaries. Half the country's
population lived in this core area, with its river valleys,
productive upland pastures, coal and copper mines, and relatively
well-developed transportation system. The remaining, much larger
area--occupied by widely dispersed herders and by isolated
administrative centers--was the economic and social periphery.
Data as of June 1989
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