Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central Asia in terms of territory and the tenth in the world, with a low population density of about 6.64 people per square kilometer, this is the 184th indicator among 237 countries of the world. Most of Kazakhstan is located in Asia and only a small part of the territory in Europe. Although Kazakhstan is washed by two seas, the Caspian and the Aral, which are actually rather large lakes, the country is considered to have no access to the sea.
A little about the country
18.5 million people live in Kazakhstan, of which 64 percent are Kazakhs and 24 percent are Russians, almost the entire population, 94.4 percent, is fluent in Russian. The economic situation of the country is much better than that of the Central Asian republics, mainly due to the presence of huge mineral reserves and developed production of grain crops. The country has the largest hydrocarbon reserves (twelfth in size in the world), which are produced by almost all global American and European oil companies and companies of those countries with which Kazakhstan borders - Russian and Chinese.
A close and kind neighbor of Russia
Kazakhstan has the longest border with Russia - 7,644 kilometers, passing through 8 Russian regions and one national republic, the border is very conditional, the regime of which was even more softened after the country joined the Eurasian Economic Union.
Regions bordering Kazakhstan: Astrakhan, Volgograd, Saratov, Samara, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Tyumen, Omsk and Novosibirsk regions, Altai Territory and the Republic of Altai.
The Republic of Altai and all Russian regions bordering Kazakhstan have close economic ties with their neighbors, which are estimated at an average of 25-30 percent of the foreign trade of these regions. For the Kazakh border regions, the share of foreign trade with Russia is estimated at 50-60%.
More than a third of the goods Kazakhstan buys in Russia, machinery and equipment, hardware and food products are the main import items. Like most countries, Kazakhstan trades with whom it borders, the more it trades, the only exception is that among the importers of Kazakhstani products Italy ranks first, Russia only ranks third. And, of course, the Baikonur Cosmodrome is a symbol of cooperation, which Russia, together withthe city of the same name rents from Kazakhstan, they cost the Russian budget about 10.6 billion rubles a year.
Central Asian
Uzbekistan (border length 2,330 kilometers), Kyrgyzstan (1,212 kilometers) and Turkmenistan (413 kilometers) are the Central Asian countries with which Kazakhstan borders in the south. The relations between the countries are quite complex, the borders between them were established largely arbitrarily, but all issues on the territory were settled by the parties. Economic relations are extremely weak because Uzbekistan and especially Turkmenistan are very closed countries, and Kyrgyzstan does not have much to offer.
For example, Germany (share - 5.7 percent) and the United States (share - 5.1 percent) have a larger share in foreign trade than the above countries with which Kazakhstan borders. Turkmenistan has a share of 0.5 percent, Kyrgyzstan - 0.9 percent, Uzbekistan - 2.4 percent.
Chinese partner
The Kazakh-Chinese border is 1,765 kilometers long in the southeast of the country. Kazakhstan is trying to maintain cautious friendly relations with China. Chinese oil companies were among the last to gain access to Kazakhstan's hydrocarbon fields, and an attempt to lease 1 million hectares of land to a Chinese company fell through due to strong public outrage. Kazakhstan is participating in a global project initiated by China - the "New Silk Road", which will create a transport corridor from East Asia to Europe. The country has traditional close ties with the ChineseXinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (with whom it trades the most and with whom it borders). Kazakhstan, together with China, built a duty-free zone at the Khorgos border crossing, which was visited by more than 2.5 million Chinese in 2016. In the foreign trade of Kazakhstan, China has a share of 14.5 percent and in exports - 11.5 percent. Of course, the influence of China, which is becoming the world's largest economy, is growing rapidly in the region.
