Where is it? I’m looking at a globe and it’s surrounded by China and Russia.
Is “outer” North, South, East or West of the center of the country? Just curious is all.
Mongolia is Outer Mongolia. The term is used to distinguish the country from Inner Mongolia, which is part of China.
Wikipedia comes to the rescue again. Outer Mongolia.
The Mongols can be divided into a whole lot of subgroups, of which the Khalkha Mongols are the largest, and more or less the northernmost of the groups. The historic Mongol realm lost dominance over China in 1368, and for the next several centuries fought with the Ming Chinese emperors, finally falling under Ch’ing (“Manchu”) dominance in 1691.
Russia, however, was expanding into its “Wild Wild East” at this time and for the next two centuries. When China threw off Manchu rule in 1911, the Khalkha Mongols seized the opportunity and declared independence, with Russian support. The religious leader Bogd Gegeen (often known in the West as the “Living Buddha”) reestablished the khanate as Bogd Khan, but Socialist revolutionary leader Choybalsan turned this into a constitutional monarchy in about 1918, then proclaimed a People’s Republic when Bogd Khan died in 1924.
The other Mongol subgroups – the Oirats, Chahars, Buryats, etc. – lying south and east of the Khalkha region, by and large remained under Chinese control, and in 1947 were united into a Mongolian Autonomous Region within (Maoist) China.
The term öbör monggol is used of this region. Much as “south” is “down” and “north” is “up” in English, in Mongolian terminological conception öbör carries a group of related concepts including “south”, “inner”, and “front.” (I was unable to locate the antonym for “north”/“outer”/“back” that resulted in “Outer” for independent Mongolia.)
But the terms, while sometimes thought Sinocentric, are actually Mongol in use, and are better translated as North and South Mongolia as opposed to Outer and Inner, though they also mean that. (Independent “Back Mongolia” and Chinese “Front Mongolia” would also be accurate, if quirky, translations.)
Interesting – so Mongolia was essentially the first communist “Satellite” Nation (or at least the oldest such one that was not eventually absorbed into the USSR itself like Tuva, and that had continued existence until the fall of Soviet communism)
While on the subject, does either the PRC or the ROC still make any claim to “outer” Mongolia? Or still have such a claim on-paper, given up IRL but not formally renounced for whatever reason?
Curiously, it appears the PRC has formally ceded rights to Outer Mongolia, but the ROC still claims it. I’m sure the Mongolians have daily nightmares imaging that pending invasion from Taiwan ;).
The ROC still does, together with a few other bits and pieces.
Taiwan’s Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission I believe has been either formally disbanded or no longer receives a government budget. You can search on the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission.