Twelve Mongolian Provincial Capitals from Ulaangom to Baruun-Urt

Ulaangom in Uvs Province is believed to have been founded in 1686, and Ulaangom Monastery, first called Dechinravjaa Monastery, followed in 1871. It lies on the Kharkhiraa slopes about 120 kilometers south of the Russian border and is counted among the coldest places in Mongolia.

Khovd was first established by Galdan Boshugtu Khan of the Dzungar Khanate in 1685 and later moved onto the bank of the Buyant River at the foot of the Altai Mountains. Mongolian forces took the city in 1912 and ended Qing rule there.

Uliastai was founded in 1733 as a Qing military garrison and became the de facto capital of Outer Mongolia, where the Qing Amban had his office. Roughly 1,115 kilometers from Ulaanbaatar in a mountain-ringed river valley, it is one of the most remote provincial capitals.

Altai, capital of Govi-Altai Province, stands at 2,213 meters, which makes it the highest city in Mongolia. It sits where the Altai Mountains rise from the edge of the Gobi, about 1,000 kilometers southwest of Ulaanbaatar.

Bayankhongor was set up in 1941 with the province, but permafrost made the first site unsuitable, so in 1961 about 900 families, more than 3,500 people, moved to the present site on the Tuin River at 1,874 meters.

Tsetserleg, whose name means garden, grew up around Zayiin Gegeen Monastery, built in the early 1680s. Its institutions were damaged in the 1932 suppression, and the town now sits at 1,691 meters on the slopes of the Khangai Mountains with cooler summers and warmer winters than most of the country.

Moron in Khovsgol Province grew from the Moronguiin Khuree monastery, founded in 1809 or 1811 and destroyed in 1937, and was replaced by Danzadarjaa Khiid in the 1990s. It joined the central power grid in 2004 but had no road link to Ulaanbaatar until December 2014.

Arvaikheer in Ovorkhangai Province lies at 1,817 meters in the eastern foothills of the Khangai Mountains and hosts a large regional horse festival each year. A Soviet Army division was based there until 1990, and a monastery destroyed in the 1937 purges reopened in 1991.

Darkhan was founded on 17 October 1961 and built with Comecon assistance as an industrial hub, with Polish specialists building woodworking and brick plants and Hungarian engineers a meat plant that opened in 1974. It is known as the second capital and had 87,696 residents in 2022.

Choir in Govisumber Province sits in the Choir Depression at 1,279 meters on the Trans-Mongolian Railway. A Soviet military base with anti-aircraft missile units stood there until 1989, and a statue near the station honors Jugderdemidiin Gurragchaa, Mongolia's first cosmonaut.

Chinggis City was called Ondorkhaan until 18 November 2013, when it was renamed for Genghis Khan, believed born in the same province. As Ondorkhaan it was the town near which Lin Biao's plane crashed on 13 September 1971. It had 20,935 residents in 2017.

Baruun-Urt, whose name means west-long, is the capital of Sukhbaatar Province at 981 meters. Its population grew from 6,000 in 1959 to a peak of 17,289 in 1994, and the Tomortiin Ovoo zinc mine lies about 13 kilometers to the north.