Mongolia is a country with extensive ancient history, as people have been living here for centuries. There are a couple main things that help people adapt to the lifestyle in the steppe of Mongolia. One of the main ones is the nomadic lifestyle: this helps people who live in the countryside to move around and find optimal land for their families and animals. This is why Mongolians in the countryside also mainly live in gers, which are round traditional houses, since they are easy to transport, relatively simple to build, and can be readily insulated for winter, but also aired out for summer. You may have heard of this shape of house before, it is sometimes called a yurt in other countries.
In the wintertime, nomadic people usually move next to a mountain so that they are not as badly affected by the wind. They also heat up the center of the ger so that the warmth stays in their houses. In summer, nomadic families do not eat much meat, so that their stomachs can rest from eating a meat-heavy diet in winter.
In Ulaanbaatar, the people have had to adapt to the environment in many ways, one of the main ones being the price of housing. Since the city has a lot more people than it was meant to, “ger districts” have formed outside of the city center. These are areas where people have built their own houses and gers to be able to work in the city by day. Ulaanbaatar is a very interesting city that is always being developed, so people continue to adapt in new ways each year!
