Just like Americans, Mongolians live in many kinds of houses: apartments, single-family houses, cabins and condos. But the most iconic Mongolian house is a ger. Gers are round homes made of five wooden walls and covered in felt that can be taken down in under an hour by skilled Mongolians. Even Mongolians that don’t live in gers are still very proud of them, and tourist destinations in Mongolia usually have gers where people can sleep, although they aren’t as homey!
Gers have everything a family needs to live: a stove to cook and heat the house, beds for people to sleep and sit on, Buddhist prayer alters and shelves for a family to store their belongings. Nowadays, most gers in the countryside have refrigerators and T.V.s too! People use solar panels to bring electricity to their home, even when they are far away from electrical lines.
However, gers are also used in the city. Nearly 50–60% of people in Ulaanbaatar live in ger districts surrounding the city. In Khovd, many people who live in gers move to the countryside in the summer, and then move to the city during the rest of the year. That way, so that they can enjoy the Mongolian countryside, but also be close to stores and hospitals when winter makes it hard to travel far.
