Sources, history, and remnants of the Mongolian monastic capital city

Being the residence of the religious dignitaries of Mongolia, the camp, founded originally by Ondor gegeen Janabajar in the 17th century, moved several times until it finally settled down in 1855 in the present Ulaanbaatar basin. The present article describes the sources regarding the monastic city, gives a short overview about its history, and describes its districts and their temples at the beginning of the 20th century. From the more than 100 temples that existed once in Ulaanbaatar only a few survived the monastery demolition of 1937–1939. The present conditions of the old monastic sites are summarized in the end of the paper.