Kazakhstan declares independence from the Soviet Union.
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia, and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia in the north and west, China in the east, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in the south. The capital is Nur-Sultan, formerly known as Astana. Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, was the country's previous capital until 1997. Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country, the world's largest Muslim-majority country by land area (and the northernmost), and the ninth-largest country in the world. It has a population of 19 million, and one of the lowest population densities in the world, at fewer than 6 people per square kilometre (15 people per sq mi).
Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically and politically, generating 60% of the region's GDP, primarily through its oil and gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources. It is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan is a member of the United Nations (UN), WTO, CIS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union, CSTO, OSCE, OIC, OTS, and TURKSOY.
The territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic groups and empires. In antiquity, the nomadic Scythians inhabited the land, and the Persian Achaemenid Empire expanded towards the southern territory of the modern country. Turkic nomads, who trace their ancestry to many Turkic states such as the First and Second Turkic Khaganates, have inhabited the country starting from the 6th century. In the 13th century, the territory was subjugated by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. In the 15th century, the Kazakh Khanate conquered much land that would later form territories of modern Kazakhstan.
By the 16th century, the Kazakhs emerged as a distinct group, divided into three jüz. The Kazakhs raided the territory of Russia throughout the 18th century, causing the Russians to advance into the Kazakh steppes, and by the mid-19th century they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire and liberated all the slaves Kazakhs had raided and captured in 1859. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times. In 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Human rights organisations have described the Kazakh government as authoritarian, and regularly describe Kazakhstan's human rights situation as poor.