Kazakhstan is the world’s largest landlocked country, covering about 2.7 million square kilometres.
It lies mainly in Central Asia, with a small portion west of the Ural River geographically in Europe. Although it has no ocean coastline, Kazakhstan borders the Caspian Sea, which is an enclosed inland body of water rather than an ocean. Its neighbours are Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
Kazakhstan’s enormous territory includes steppe, desert, semi-desert, mountains, and major inland lakes. Its size makes it the ninth-largest country in the world overall, despite having no direct access to the world’s oceans.
A common mix-up is confusing Kazakhstan with Mongolia, another large Asian landlocked country. Mongolia is substantially smaller. Kazakhstan’s Caspian shoreline also does not make it a coastal country in the usual geographic classification, because the Caspian is not connected naturally to the global ocean.