Baikonur is a small mining town in central

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

near

Jezkazgan Jezkazgan, or Zhezkazgan ( kk, Жезқазған, translit=Jezqazğan ), formerly known as Dzhezkazgan (russian: Джезказган) until 1992, is a city and the administrative centre of Ulytau Region, Kazakhstan, on a reservoir of the Kara ...

. Coal mining began in 1914. In 1961, the name was appropriated for the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome ( kk, Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы, translit=Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy, ; russian: Космодром Байконур, translit=Kosmodrom Baykonur, ) is a spaceport in an area of southern Kazakhstan leased to R ...

about 320 kilometres southwest of the older mining town; some sources state this was done in order to keep the actual location of the cosmodrome secret. Leninsk, the town built to support the cosmodrome, was renamed

Baikonur Baikonur ( kk, Байқоңыр, ; russian: Байконур, translit=Baykonur), formerly known as Leninsk, is a city of republic significance in Kazakhstan on the northern bank of the Syr Darya river. It is currently leased and administered ...

in 1995 after the fall of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Geography

River

flows by the village.{{cite web, url=https://maps.vlasenko.net/smtm1000/l-42.jpg, title=L-42 Topographic Chart (in Russian), access-date=9 September 2022

References

Populated places in Karaganda Region