Kyrgyzstan, formally the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked mountainous nation in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bounded to the north by Kazakhstan, to the west by Uzbekistan, to the south by Tajikistan, and to the east by China. Bishkek is its capital and biggest city. The bulk of the country's six million residents is ethnic Kyrgyz, with a large minority of Uzbeks and Russians. Kyrgyz and other Turkic languages are closely related.
Kyrgyzstan's history is rich in civilizations and empires. Despite its physical isolation due to its high mountainous terrain, Kyrgyzstan has served as a crossroads for various major civilizations as part of the Silk Road and other trading routes. Kyrgyzstan, inhabited by a series of tribes and clans, has frequently come under bigger dominance. Turkic nomads with ancestors from several Turkic nations, including the First and Second Turkic Khaganates, have lived in the country throughout its history. Kyrgyzstan was captured by the Mongols in the 13th century; it recovered independence but was afterward attacked by the Dzungar Khanate. Following the collapse of the Dzhungars, Kyrgyz and Kipchaks became an essential element of the Kokand Khanate. Kyrgyzstan joined the Russian Empire in 1876, and the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Country was created in 1936 to become a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. As a result of Mikhail Gorbachev's democratic changes in the USSR, pro-independence candidate Askar Akayev was elected president in 1990. Kyrgyzstan gained independence from Moscow on August 31, 1991, and a democratic government was founded. Kyrgyzstan gained independence as a nation-state after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Kyrgyzstan was officially a unitary presidential republic after independence, but after the tulip revolution, it became a unitary parliamentary republic, though it gradually developed an executive president and was governed as a semi-presidential republic before reverting to a presidential system in 2021. Throughout its history, the nation has seen ethnic conflicts, revolts, economic difficulties, transitional regimes, and political struggles.
Kyrgyzstan belongs to the Commonwealth of the Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization of Turkic States, the Türksoy community, and the United Nations. It is a developing nation that ranks 120th on the Human Development Index and is the poorest in Central Asia. The country's transition economy is highly reliant on gold, coal, and uranium reserves.