Because of the vast, picturesque Tian Shan mountains, Kyrgyzstan is sometimes referred to as the “Switzerland of Central Asia.” Indeed, the scenic, green Jyrgalan Valley looks like it could almost double for the setting of “The Sound of Music.” The highest mountain in Kyrgyzstan is Pobeda Peak, at 22,949 feet above sea level.

Within the Karakum Desert, about 160 miles north of Turkmenistan’s capital city of Ashgabat, you’ll find an attraction called the Darvaza Gas Crater, better known as “the Gates of Hell.” The huge crater features flames fueled by natural gas which have been burning since 1971, when Soviet geologists created the phenomenon while drilling for oil.

Believed to be over a thousand years old, the “Epic of Manas” contains over 500,000 lines, making it the world’s longest poem according to Guinness World Records. The epic poem is written in verse about a Kyrgyz tribal leader named Manas, and it was passed down in oral form until a printed version was published in 1958.

The root “kyrg” translates to the number 40, and “gyz” roughly translates to “tribes” in the Turkic languages. Combined, the words refer to the 40 tribes that came together to protect their homeland from China in the ninth century. Modern-day Kyrgyzstan has a population of about 6.5 million, with its largest city, Bishkek, home to about 1 million people.

Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997 in Mingora, Pakistan, and she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner at the age of 17. Yousafzai began blogging about what life was like under Taliban rule for the BBC at the age of 11, and survived an attack by the Taliban four years later. Her activism following her attack also led to Pakistan’s creation of their first Right to Education Bill.

Once covered largely by the Aral Sea, the Aralkum Desert is now considered the world’s youngest desert, having formed as recently as 1960. The Aral Sea has lost 90% of its original size, and the drying of the southern Aral Sea has left behind 17,000 square miles of desert terrain in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The desert formed after the Soviet Union’s irrigation projects in the area greatly lowered the sea levels.

Cricket is the most popular sport in Pakistan, and the men’s national team won the Cricket World Cup in 1992. Pakistan’s captain Imran Khan led the team to a 22-run win over England in the final, held in Melbourne, Australia. Despite cricket’s popularity in Pakistan, Australia has won the greatest number of Cricket World Cups (five).

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. After his family moved to California, he began a career as a doctor, before going on to find even greater success as an author. Hosseini wrote “The Kite Runner” while still working in medicine, but was able to retire after the novel spent 101 weeks on “The New York Times” bestseller List.

Pakistan is easily the most populated “stan” country, and its capital of Karachi is also the largest city by population in this group of nations. With over 16 million residents, Karachi is the 11th-most populous city in the world. Karachi is the capital of Pakistan’s Sindh province, and it is also the country’s largest seaport, located on the Arabian Sea.

Most of the Pamir Mountains are found within the borders of Tajikistan, but the massive mountain range also reaches Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. The highest point in the Pamirs reaches 24,590 feet above sea level atop Imeni Ismail Samani Peak (which was once called Communism Peak) in Tajikistan.

Kazakhstan is bordered by five countries: China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan also borders two major bodies of water, the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, which also stretches into Uzbekistan.

The fictional film character Borat (whose full name is Borat Margaret Sagdiyev) hails from Kazakhstan. While Borat shows his Kazakh pride in the movies, the country didn’t initially return his affection, even banning the first film of the series. Eventually, Kazakhstan came around and even used a Borat catchphrase as their 2020 tourism slogan: “Kazakhstan. Very Nice!”

A landlocked country is one that does not have direct access to an ocean. A doubly landlocked country is one that only shares borders with other landlocked countries. There are only two such doubly landlocked nations in the world: Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is bordered by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan — which are themselves landlocked.

About 70% of Turkmenistan is covered by the Karakum Desert, which spans 135,000 square miles. The population in the desert is extremely sparse, with one person inhabiting every 2.5 square miles on average. The name Karakum translates to “Black Sand,” and the desert contains a limited amount of wildlife — primarily small populations of turtles, lizards, and rodents.

The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest inland body of water, running 750 miles north to south and spanning 149,200 square miles in area. It is bordered in the northeast by 884 miles of Kazakhstan coastline, and in the southeast by 643 miles of Turkmenistan coastline. The Caspian Sea also shares a border with Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia.

The Turkmen and Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republics became a part of the Soviet Union in 1925, followed by the Tajik SSR in 1929 and the Kirghiz (later known as Kyrgyzstan) and Kazakh SSRs in 1936. Modern-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan all became independent nations after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

According to information published by the U.S. Census, Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country on Earth, with 247.6 million people as of 2023. Only China, India, the United States, and Indonesia have more people than Pakistan. Pakistan has more than double the people of all the other “stan” countries combined.

The suffixes “-stan”, “-sta,” and “-istan” appear in many countries in central and southern Asia, and they all have a meaning related to place. In Persian and Urdu, “-stan” refers to where one “stands,” and the Indo-European word “sta” means either “stands” or “settlement.” Similar versions of these root words are also found within the Russian language.

The second-tallest mountain on Earth, K2 peaks at 28,251 feet above the border between Pakistan and the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang, China. Most climbers approach the peak from the less hazardous Pakistani side of the mountain, but it still a formiddable challenge and has never been summited during the winter.

Not only is Kazakhstan the largest of the “stan” countries by area, but it is also the largest country in Central Asia and the largest landlocked country in the world. Kazakhstan covers an area of over a million square miles. There are only eight countries on Earth that have a larger area than Kazakhstan.