Alag-Erdene is a sum of Khövsgöl aimag. The area is about 4,500 km², of which 1,460 km² are forest, and 2,760 km² are pasture. In 2005, the sum had 2992 inhabitants, incl. some Darkhad, Khotgoid, and Uriankhai. The center, officially named Mankhan is situated close to the road from Mörön to Khatgal, 62 km north of Mörön and 733 kilometers from Ulaanbaatar.

History

The Alag-Erdene sum was founded, together with the whole Khövsgöl aimag, in 1931. In 1933, it had about 3,400 inhabitants in 1006 households, and about 82,000 heads of livestock. In 1942, two bags were transferred to Renchinlkhümbe, in 1952 two other bags became part of Tünel sum

Tünel, Khövsgöl

Tünel is a sum of Khövsgöl aimag. The area is 3,580 km², of which about one third is forest. In 2000, Tünel had a population of 4,556 people, including some Khotgoid...

. In 1956, three bags were transferred from Büren sum, together with the Khögjil negdel

Negdel

Negdel is the common term for the agricultural cooperatives in the Mongolian People's Republic. The full name is Khödöö aj axuin negdel .- Early attempts :...

.

Economy

In 2004, there were roughly 76,000 heads of livestock, among them 26,000 sheep, 36,000 goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s, 11,500 cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

 and yak

Yak

The yak, Bos grunniens or Bos mutus, is a long-haired bovine found throughout the Himalayan region of south Central Asia, the Tibetan Plateau and as far north as Mongolia and Russia. In addition to a large domestic population, there is a small, vulnerable wild yak population...

s, 6,400 horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s, and 33 camels

Bactrian camel

The Bactrian camel is a large, even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of central Asia. It is presently restricted in the wild to remote regions of the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts of Mongolia and Xinjiang. A small number of wild Bactrian camels still roam the Mangystau Province of southwest...

. During the 1980s, Soviet geologists conducted large-scale exploration projects for phosphorite

Phosphorite

Phosphorite, phosphate rock or rock phosphate is a non-detrital sedimentary rock which contains high amounts of phosphate bearing minerals. The phosphate content of phosphorite is at least 15 to 20% which is a large enrichment over the typical sedimentary rock content of less than 0.2%...

 in the area, but these projects were discontinued in the early 1990s, due to both the general political/economic situation after the end of socialism, and the discontent of the local population. Other commodities include black coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

, graphite

Graphite

The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...

, and quartz

Quartz

Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...

Miscellaneous

Lake Khövsgöl borders the sum to the north. Erkhel nuur was the site of an avian influenza outbreak in 2005.