Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country mainly located in Central Asia with a smaller portion west of the Ural River in Eastern Europe. It covers a land area of , and shares land borders with Russia in the north, China in the east, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in the south while also adjoining a large part of the Caspian Sea in the southwest. Kazakhstan does not border Mongolia, although they are only 37 kilometers apart, separated by a short portion of the border between Russia and China.