FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF "ALTAI STUDIES"

Abstract

The term "Altai Studies" is commonly used to associated with “linguistics” by researchers and the public all around the world. But this time, we intend to put forward our proposal about the possibility of using and developing the name "Altai Studies" in a wider scope.

Therefore, we intend to first consider it in the geographical context and integrate it politically and economically. The Altai Mountains span the territory of four countries: Mongolia, Russia, China, and Kazakhstan.

 The Mongolian Altai Mountains constitute a major and central part of the Altai Mountain range located at the junction of Central Asia and Siberia. The Mongol Altai has many summits around or even exceeding 4000 meters above sea level (m.a.sl.) and stretches for some 900 kilometers from the north-western part of the country to the south, through the territories of Bayan-Ulgii and Khovd provinces. Over 20 peaks are snow capped in the Mongol Altai Mountain Range. These include Altai Tavan Bogd, the highest peak of Mongolia at 4,374 m.a..s.l., Munkh Khairkhan (4,204 m.a.s.l), Sutai Khairkhan (4,226 m.a.s.l) and Tsambagarav khairkhan (4,195 m.a.s.l.). Towards the southeast, the Mongol Altai Mountain Range gets smaller and transitions into the Govi-Altai Mountain range. In the Chinese and Kazakh parts of the Altai, the slopes in the montane and sub-alpine belts are covered in forests, whereas the Mongolian Altai has a much drier climate. The high ridges of the Altai descend to large basins and dry steppes, that extend eastward across vast areas dominated by great inland seas in ancient times.a