Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country in Central Asia with a land area of 2,724,900 square kilometres (1,052,100 sq mi); it has borders with Russia in the north, China in the east, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in the south. The capital is Nur-Sultan, formerly known as Astana. It was moved from Almaty, the country's largest city, in 1997. Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country, and the ninth-largest in the world. It has a population of 18.8 million, and one of the lowest population densities in the world, at fewer than 6 people per square kilometre (15 people per sq mi).