Nalaikh

Nalaikh (Mongolian: Налайх) is one of nine districts (düüreg) of the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. It has an area of 68,700 hectares and a population of 39,579 in 2022 (26,529 in 2005). A former coal-mining town, it is subdivided into 8 subdistricts (khoroo) incorporating Shokhoi, Arjanchivlan, Terelj holiday center, and other residential areas, as well as a former Soviet military cantonment, including an airfield. Nalaikh is linked to Ulaanbaatar by a 43-kilometer narrow-gauge railway line, built in July 1938. The line had three stations (Nalaikh; Amgalan, a Ulaanbaatar suburb; and Kombinat, the city's industrial combine) and operated 14 steam locomotives, 16 passenger carriages, 70 goods wagons, 10 platform wagons, and nine fuel tank wagons. Nalaikh now has a broad-gauge branch line (via Khonkhor) to the Trans-Mongolian Railway. The Kapitalnaya shaft went into operation in 1951, and at full capacity produced 600,000 metric tons of coal a year. Nalaikh gained town status in 1962, and was established as a district of Ulaanbaatar in 1992. Since the closure of the coal mine in the 1990s, the town has had a high rate of unemployment.