Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country situated primarily in Central Asia, with a portion of its territory extending into Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, and it has a coastline along the Caspian Sea. The capital is Astana, and the country's largest city and principal cultural and economic center is Almaty, which served as the capital until 1997.
Kazakhstan is the world's ninth-largest country by land area and the largest landlocked country. Hilly plateaus and plains account for nearly half its vast territory, with lowlands composing another third; its southern and eastern frontiers are composed of mountainous regions. Kazakhstan has a population of 20.6 million and one of the lowest population densities in the world, with fewer than 8 people per square kilometre (21 people/mi2). Ethnic Kazakhs constitute a majority, while ethnic Russians form a significant minority. Officially secular, Kazakhstan is a Muslim-majority country with a sizeable Christian community.
Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era. In antiquity, various nomadic Iranian peoples such as the Saka, Massagetae, and Scythians dominated the territory, with the Achaemenid Persian Empire expanding towards the south. Turkic nomads entered the region from the sixth century. In the 13th century, the area was subjugated by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. Following the disintegration of the Golden Horde in the 15th century, the Kazakh Khanate was established over an area roughly corresponding with modern Kazakhstan. By the 18th century, the Kazakh Khanate had fragmented into three jüz (tribal divisions), which were gradually absorbed and conquered by the Russian Empire; by the mid-19th century, all of Kazakhstan was nominally under Russian rule. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War, it became an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR within the Soviet Union. Its status was elevated to that of a union republic in 1936. The Soviet government settled Russians and other ethnicities in the republic, which resulted in ethnic Kazakhs being a minority during the Soviet era. Kazakhstan was the last constituent republic of the Soviet Union to declare independence in 1991 during its dissolution.
Kazakhstan dominates Central Asia both economically and politically, accounting for 60% of the region's GDP, primarily through its oil and gas industry; it also has vast mineral resources, ranking among the highest producers of iron and silver in the world. Kazakhstan also has the highest Human Development Index ranking in the region. It is a unitary constitutional republic; however, its government is authoritarian. Nevertheless, there have been incremental efforts at democratization and political reform since the resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2019, who had led the country since independence. Kazakhstan is a member state of the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Health Organization (WHO), Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Organization of Turkic States (OTS), International Organization of Turkic Culture and Special Guest status with the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.
According to the most widely accepted theory, the word qazaq (Kazakh) derives from a Turkic root meaning "free", "independent", or "wanderer". The name Kazakhstan adds the word stan, meaning settlement.
The Turkic word qazaq (قازاق) was reliably recorded in 13th–14th century dictionaries, including the Codex Cumanicus and a Mamluk-Kipchak Arabic dictionary published by Martin Houtsma. In these sources, the word meant "unattached", "homeless", "loner", or "exile", and later acquired the meaning "free man".
In Turko-Persian sources, the term Özbek-Qazaq first appeared during the mid-16th century, in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi by Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, a Chagatayid prince of Kashmir, which locates Kazakh in the eastern part of Desht-i Qipchaq. According to Vasily Bartold, the Kazakhs likely began using that name during the 15th century.
The English word Kazakh, meaning a member of the Kazakh people, derives from Russian: казах. The native name is қазақ, qazaq. It might originate from the Turkic word verb qaz-, 'to wander', reflecting the Kazakhs' nomadic culture. The term Cossack is of the same origin.
Though Kazakh traditionally referred only to ethnic Kazakhs, including those living in China, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and other neighbouring countries, the term is increasingly being used to refer to any inhabitant of Kazakhstan, including residents of other ethnicities. In the Kazakh language, the country is called Qazaqstan in the Latin script.
Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era. The Botai culture (3700–3100 BC) is credited with the first domestication of horses. The Botai population derived most of their ancestry from a deeply European-related population known as Ancient North Eurasians, while also displaying some Ancient East Asian admixture. Pastoralism developed during the Neolithic. The population was Caucasoid during the Bronze and Iron Age period.
The Kazakh territory was a key constituent of the Eurasian trading Steppe Route, the ancestor of the terrestrial Silk Roads. Archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the region's vast steppes. During recent prehistoric times, Central Asia was inhabited by groups such as the possibly Indo-European Afanasievo culture, later early Indo-Iranian cultures such as Andronovo, and later Indo-Iranians such as the Saka and Massagetae. Other groups included the nomadic Scythians and the Persian Achaemenid Empire in the southern territory of the modern country. The Andronovo and Srubnaya cultures, precursors to the peoples of the Scythian cultures, were found to harbour mixed ancestry from the Yamnaya Steppe herders and peoples of the Central European Middle Neolithic.
The main migrations of the Turkic peoples took place between the 5th and 11th centuries, during which Turkic-speaking groups spread across much of Central Asia. Over time, they gradually assimilated or replaced many of the earlier Iranian-speaking populations, transforming Central Asia from a predominantly Iranian region into one largely Turkic-speaking.
Medieval statehood on the territory of present-day Kazakhstan began to emerge with the establishment of the Turkic Khaganate in the mid-6th century. In 630, the Eastern Turkic Khaganate was defeated by the Chinese and incorporated into the Tang dynasty. In 658, the Western Turkic Khaganate suffered a similar fate after its defeat by Tang forces. Turkic political power was later restored when Kutlug Ilterish Qaghan revived the Eastern Turkic Khaganate in 682. On the territory of the former Western Turkic Khaganate, the Turgesh Khaganate emerged in 699 under the leadership of Üch-elik. The Turgesh actively resisted the Arab expansion into Central Asia during the 720s and 730s, but were ultimately defeated in the mid-8th century. During the same period, the Eastern Turkic Khaganate fragmented as a result of internal conflicts and political disunity.
From the 8th to the early 13th centuries, the territory of Kazakhstan was successively dominated by the Karluks, Oghuz, Kimeks, and Kipchaks. In southern Kazakhstan, the Karluks established a new khaganate in 840, although their rulers retained the title of yabghu. They later came under pressure from the Samanid Empire and eventually became associated with the rise of the Karakhanid state. The Oghuz tribes established themselves in the Aral Sea region and made Yangikent (Dzhankent) their capital. Despite attempts at political consolidation, internal conflicts weakened the Oghuz state. Between the 9th and 11th centuries, much of western and central Kazakhstan came under the control of the Kimek Khanate, whose rulers adopted the title of khagan. The Kimek state was eventually conquered by the Kipchaks. The Kipchaks, known in East Slavic chronicles as the Polovtsians, became one of the dominant powers of the Eurasian steppe. Their ruling elites played an influential role in the politics of Khwarazm, and by the 12th century Kipchak cavalry had become a major military force within the Khwarazmian Empire. They contributed significantly to the empire's expansion, including the conquest of the Karakhanid state and neighbouring Central Asian territories. In 1218, however, Khwarazm came into conflict with Genghis Khan, leading to the Mongol conquest of the region and its incorporation into the Mongol Empire.