evidence: Kazakhstan is located in Central Asia (with 4% of the country (108,996 km2) in Eastern Europe[1]). With an area of about 2,724,900 square kilometers (1,052,100 sq mi) Kazakhstan is more than twice the combined size of the other four Central Asian states and 60% larger than Alaska. The country borders Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan to the south; Russia to the north; Russia and the Caspian Sea to the west; and China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the east. [...] With some conspicuous exceptions, lip service has been the primary official response to Kazakhstan's ecological problems. In February 1989, opposition to Soviet nuclear testing and its ill effects in Kazakhstan led to the creation of one of the republic's largest and most influential grass-roots movements, Nevada-Semipalatinsk, which was founded by Kazak poet and public figure Olzhas Suleymenov. In the first week of the movement's existence, Nevada-Semipalatinsk gathered more than two million signatures from Kazakhstanis of all ethnic groups on a petition to Mikhail Gorbachev demanding the end of nuclear testing in Kazakhstan. After a year of demonstrations and protests, the test ban took effect in 1990. It remained in force in 1996, although in 1995 at least one unexploded device reportedly was still in position near Semey. [...] External links [edit]- Geography of Kazakhstan - Geography and tourism of Kazakhstan Archived 2017-06-12 at the Wayback Machine