Until recently, most of the people there were Buddhists. Many of them are nomads (people who always move from place to place and do not stay in one home), but this is changing. The largest city, and capital city is Ulaanbaatar. It is where about 38% of the population live. This has been spelled "Ulan Bator/ Ulaan Battor" and other ways in the past. The north and east parts of the country have many mountains. Part of the south part is the Gobi Desert. There are 2,791,272 people living in Mongolia. The country is the 18th biggest country in the world, with an area of .