Funny and interesting facts and observations  

Part of Taiwan
Officially Taiwan considers Mongolia to be part of their territory. Taiwan still considers itself by constitution the Republic Of China, claiming the complete territory of the present People's Republic of China, but also the current Republic of Mongolia.

Money
1000 Mongolian Tugrug is about 1 € (for current rate see Yahoo finance), most of it smells like mutton.

Growing population
In between 1989 the number of households increased by 26.5%.

Diet
Mongolia´s diet is very much based on meat and dairy products. The local alcoholic drink is airag, fermented mare´s milk

Snooker animals
The horse and camel are very important animals in Mongolia. Even the bridges for playing snooker are called after them.

Telephone
In 2000 2,1 of the rural households had a telephone; 29,3% of the urban households

Strip
In a regular nightclub you have a rather big chance that at some point the music changes and a striptease act, or a Russian  dancing group appears on the stage.

Dino´s
Joint expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia have been able to collect more than more than 150 dinosaurs and 300 lizards and the skulls of 240 mammals in Mongolia.

Walking phones
In the streets of Ulaanbaatar you will find a big number of so called MobiPhones. Their size is about two times a regular phone, but everywhere you see them at the small kiosks or people just sitting or walking around with them giving you the oppurtunity to phone for 200 tugrug.

Abortion (not so funny)
Mongolia is "suffering" from an annual population growth decrease (so the growth of the population decreases). As one of the causes is seen the Mongolians moving abroad, which is indeed an increasing number. In the September 19th issue of the Mongol Messenger there is however an article on abortion as one of the causes. In Mongolia it is since the 90´s allowed to have an abortion within the first 12 weeks of conception. UN statistics tell us that in 1996 there were 15.600 reported. The authors of the article argue that this only the tip of the iceberg.

 Do you know anymore funny or interesting facts about Mongolia. Please let us know.