Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country in Central Asia, with a small portion west of the Ural River in easternmost Europe. Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country by land area and the ninth largest country in the world; its territory of 2,727,300 square kilometres is larger than Western Europe. Moreover, lying on both sides of the Ural River makes Kazakhstan one of only two landlocked countries in the world lying on two continents. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, and also borders on a large part of the Caspian Sea. The terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. With 16.6 million people Kazakhstan has the 62nd largest population in the world, though its population density is less than 6 people per square kilometre . The capital was moved in 1998 from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to Astana. Wikipedia