FACTBOX: Key facts about Kazakhstan

(Reuters) - Kazakhstan is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its capital Astana -- a city seen as a symbol of the resource-rich nation's ambition to become a modern and developed state.

Below are some key facts about Kazakhstan:

* GEOGRAPHY: Landlocked Kazakhstan is the world's ninth largest country with an area of 2,699,700 sq km (1.042 million sq miles) and is slightly larger than western Europe. Most of the country is flat, the Tien-Shan mountain range runs along part of its southern edge.

* POPULATION: Over 15.6 million.

* ETHNICITY: Kazakhs form 59.2 percent of the population, Russians 25.6 percent, Ukrainians and Uzbeks 2.9 percent each, as of early 2007. There are also sizeable Uighur, Tatar and German minorities.

* LANGUAGE: Kazakh is the state language. Russian is the widely used official language.

* RELIGION: Islam and Christian Orthodox.

* ECONOMY: Gross domestic product growth (GDP) slowed to 8.5 percent in 2007 from 10.7 percent in 2006 as the global liquidity squeeze hit Kazakhstan's highly-leveraged banks and construction companies.

-- The government expects economic growth to slow to 5.3 percent this year, but expects it to pick up again in 2009.

-- Inflation soared to 18.8 percent in 2007, but the authorities hope to reduce it to single digits this year.

* ENERGY: The ex-Soviet Central Asian state produces about 1.3 million barrels of oil per day and has reaped the benefit of high prices for its crude and metals exports on world markets.

-- The country plans to triple oil production by 2017 putting it among the top 10 producers, thanks to new oilfields.

* ELECTIONS: President Nursultan Nazarbayev's party won every available seat in a parliamentary election last year after a flawed vote that the opposition said turned the clock back to totalitarian Soviet rule.

-- Nazarbayev has ruled the country since 1989, first as Communist leader, then as president. U.S. prosecutors have alleged he was paid $60 million in bribes for oil contracts from Western firms, a charge he has denied.

* DIPLOMACY: Kazakhstan will chair Europe's top human rights and democracy watchdog, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2010.

(Writing by Olzhas Auyezov)