Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of 1,564,116 square kilometres, with a population of just 3.3 million, making it the world's most sparsely populated sovereign nation. Mongolia is the world's largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea, and much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to roughly half of the country's population.
Zhang Yimou is a Chinese film director, producer, writer, actor and former cinematographer. He is a part of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, Honorary Doctorate of Boston University and Yale University, Distinguished Professor of Beijing Film Academy. He made his directorial debut in 1988 with Red Sorghum.
The University of Liverpool is a public research university based in the city of Liverpool, England. Founded as a college in 1881, it gained its Royal Charter in 1903 with the ability to award degrees, and is also known to be one of the six 'red brick' civic universities, the first to be referred to as The Original Red Brick. It comprises three faculties organised into 35 departments and schools. It is a founding member of the Russell Group, the N8 Group for research collaboration and the university management school is triple crown accredited.
The Royal Society for Asian Affairs (RSAA) is a learned society based in London. Its objective is to advance public knowledge and understanding of Asia through its worldwide networks, its public events, its publications and its support to research. It is independent of governments and political bodies and does not take institutional positions on issues of policy at its meetings or in its publications.
Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky was a Russian geographer of Polish descent, and a renowned explorer of Central and East Asia.
Owen Lattimore was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1938 to 1963. He was director of the Walter Hines Page School of International Relations there from 1939 to 1953. During World War II, he was an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and the American government and contributed extensively to the public debate on American policy in Asia. From 1963 to 1970, Lattimore was the first Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds in England.
Baotou is the largest city by urban population in Inner Mongolia, China. Governed as a prefecture-level city, as of the 2020 census, its built-up area made up of its 5 urban districts is home to 2,261,089 people with a total population of 2,709,378 accounting for counties under its jurisdiction. The city's namesake, literally translated to "place with deer", is of Mongolic origin or "Lucheng", meaning "City of Deer". Alternatively Baotou is known as the "City of Steel in Gobi".
Spencer Wells is an American geneticist, anthropologist, author and entrepreneur. He co-hosts The Insight podcast with Razib Khan. Wells led The Genographic Project from 2005 to 2015, as an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, and is the founder and executive director of personal genomics nonprofit The Insitome Institute.
Labrang Monastery is one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Its formal name is Genden Shédrup Dargyé Trashi Gyésu khyilwé Ling.
Ian Johnson is a Canadian-born American writer and independent scholar known for his long-time reporting and a series of books on China and Germany. His Chinese name is Zhang Yan (張彦). Johnson writes regularly for The New York Review of Books and The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
John Lawson Thornton is an American businessman and professor and director of the Global Leadership Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He is also executive chairman of Barrick Gold Corporation and non-executive chairman of PineBridge Investments. Thornton stepped down as co-president of Goldman Sachs in 2003.
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were built from as early as the 7th century BC, with selective stretches later joined by Qin Shi Huang (220–206 BC), the first emperor of China. Little of the Qin wall remains. Later on, many successive dynasties built and maintained multiple stretches of border walls. The best-known sections of the wall were built by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).
The Gobi Desert is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia, and is the sixth largest desert in the world.
Jasper Martin Becker is a British author, commentator, and journalist who has spent two decades as a foreign correspondent mostly in China.
Bat-Ochiryn "Ziggy" Ser-Od is a Mongolian long-distance runner who competes in road races, particularly the marathon. He represented his country in the marathon at 5 Summer Olympics in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2021. A member of the Morpeth Harriers running club, he divides his time between his native country and Gateshead in England.
Wolf Totem is a 2015 drama film based on the 2004 Chinese semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Jiang Rong. Directed by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, the Chinese-French co-production features a Chinese student who is sent to Inner Mongolia to teach shepherds and instead learns about the wolf population, which is under threat by a government apparatchik.
Airling Robin Hanbury-Tenison is an explorer based in Cornwall. He is President of the charity Survival International and was previously Chief Executive of The Countryside Alliance.
Kin Wah Moy (born 1966) is an American diplomat and holds the diplomatic rank of career minister. He is the first Chinese-American to hold the post as director of the American Institute in Taiwan. Having served in the Department of State and several diplomatic outposts, he began his tenure as the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto embassy of the United States in Taiwan, in June 2015.
John Neville Hare was a British explorer, author, and conservationist, known for campaigning for the preservation of the Wild Bactrian camel.
Reginald Charles Francis Schomberg (1880–1958) was a British officer and explorer, who served in Asia.
