BURIAT MONGOL REPUBLIC, an autonomous So cialist Soviet Republic in Asiatic Russia, created as a region in Jan. 1922, and as a republic in Sept. 1923. Area 419,000sq.km. Pop. (1926) 522,093; urban 36,523, rural 485,570. The republic consists of detached parts related to the life of the Buriat herds men and cultivators. On the south-east there is a detached Buriat area, south of Chita, surrounded by the Chita province, near the Mongolian frontier, between the Yablonoi and Nerchinsk ranges; this is an area of sub-alpine meadows and sluggish streams. The main part of the republic consists primarily of part of the Vitim plateau, east of Lake Baikal, but the high west border of the lake is also included. From this main area the republic projects west wards along two highland lines, one following the Sayan moun tains south and west of Baikal as far as the source of the River Iya, the other following the western tongue of hills north of the Angara valley, having a small detached highland piece at its western end. The Angara valley and the coast of Baikal north and south of it are in the Irkutsk province of the Siberian area (q.v.). The Buriats are a Mongol people, broad shouldered, stout, small, with slanting eyes, high cheekbones and broad, flat noses. They are skilful horse and cattle breeders, hunters and fishers. Many are still nomadic herdsmen, going in summer to the more exposed and higher Alpine meadows, in autumn to the mown mea dows (thus providing manure for the cultivators), in winter to places sheltered from the biting winds and in spring to those places where the snow melts earliest. Sometimes spring snow storms cause much damage to the flocks and herds. The hunters trap squirrel and other fur-bearing animals, and also the maral deer, valued for its horns. Fishing is extensively carried on, and has much developed with improved steamer traffic. Many Buriats, however, have given up the nomadic life and become settled culti vators. The areas where crops are raised show an interesting relation to orography, since they are all in the river valleys, chiefly in the south-east of the main area, i.e., the valleys of the Selenga, Khilky, Chikoyu and Uda rivers : the areas bordering these rivers, Verkhne Udinsk, Selenga and Troitskosaysk, have 46% of the ploughed lands in the republic. Verkhne Udinsk is most densely sown, with 158,200 hectares out of the total 498,000 ploughed in the republic. The crops grown are rye 48-8%, oats 19-3%, wheat 17.4%, buckwheat 6.9%, barley 3.5%, grasses 2.3%, potatoes 1.5% of the total harvest. In the north-east of the republic (the Vitim plateau) there is no agriculture except for a sparse sowing along the valley of the Barguzin river, 6,000 hectares 0.2% of the whole sown area).
The mountain area south-east of Lake Baikal fringes the high Asiatic plateaus. A little east of the lake the broad deep Uda valley from the north-east joins the Selenga valley which runs north from Kiakhta and affords routes to the Gobi desert. The Trans-Siberian railway cuts across between the Uda and Selenga valleys eastward to the Khilok valley and Chita. The Barguzin mountains (7,000-8,000f t.) to the north-east of the lake and the Khamar Daban mountains (6,9ooft.), south of the Selenga river, make communication difficult. Thick forests of larch, fir and cedar clothe these ridges, whose dome-shaped summits rise above the vegetation, but not the snow-line. The high plateau region is intersected by the picturesque valleys of the Barguzin river (to Lake Baikal) and the Zyra and Muga (to Vitim river). It is undulating, with ridges (I,500-2,000ft.) crossing it, and has broad, flat, marshy valleys, with sluggish, meandering streams, the better drained valleys having fine meadows for pasture. Glaciers existed and in post-glacial times numerous lakes (around whose shores are remains of Neolithic settlements) : the lakes are drying and some have completely disappeared. The climate of the republic is on the whole exceedingly dry, with cold winters and hot sum mers. The rivers are frozen i6o days in the south and 18o in the north. Lake Baikal modifies the climate and the winter isotherms curve strikingly north, especially during freezing, when open water and the liberation of latent heat combine to warm the air and fogs develop. Conversely the summer isotherms bend south, and the range of temperature varies with distance from the lake 14.0° F Jan. to 6o.8° F July on the Selenga delta, but —4.0° F Jan. to 71.6° F July farther east. Deep snow covers the mountains round the lake in winter. Earthquakes are frequent in the Selenga delta area and extend to Irkutsk, Barguzin and Selenginsk, and mineral springs are numerous, hot alkaline springs (130° F) at Turka, near the mouth of the Barguzin and at Pogromna on the Uda (similar to the Seltzer springs).
The province has mineral wealth, much of it not yet exploited: iron is mined on the south-east of Lake Baikal, on the Khamar daban slopes, manganese near the left bank of the mouth of the Upper Angara, and gold on the slopes of the north-east plateau. The Trans-Siberian railway passes round the south of the lake and through Verkhne Udinsk up the Khilok valley, and has helped to develop the resources of the area. Trains are also ferried from Listvinichnoe on the Irkutsk coast of the lake to Misovaya (Misovsk) south of the Selenga river, and an ice-breaker is now in use. Steamers ply weekly between these two ports and ascend the Selenga river to the Mongolian frontier, importing brick tea via Kiakhta. Grain, cedar nuts, salt, soda, wool and timber are shipped on rafts down the Khilok, Chikoyu and Uda rivers (tribu taries of the Selenga) and manufactured goods are taken up the river for export to China. Furs are exported in quantity, espe cially squirrel, and fish export has developed with improved steamer traffic. The chief towns are Verkhne Udinsk (q.v.), pop. (1926) 21,647, Troitskosaysk with Kiakhta pop. (1926) 8,474, an important trading centre on the Mongolian frontier and Bargu zin pop. (1926) 2,217, at the mouth of the Barguzin.
The Buriats were conquered by the Russians at the end of the 17th century. Many of them are literate and possess books of their own translated from Tibetan to Mongolian, and the culti vators are progressive and keen to increase education, but amongst the nomad herdsmen education presents great difficulties and many of their children, especially the girls, receive no school education.