Talk:Altai-Sayan region

Help needed to expand page

I created this page because the phrase "Altai-Sayan" was used in a recent popular article (in New Scientist), and when I searched on Wikipedia, there was neither a page, nor a redirect, nor even a logical place to point a redirect. Then I did searches and saw that lots of scholarly articles have been citing this region. Therefore this region seemed definitely noteworthy as a specific region. However, this really is a topic about which I know hardly anything, so I hope that others can build up this page and make it better grounded, balanced, and documented. I have essentially put in a few references to ensure that notability is clear, and to show the types of things that might be said about this region, but I lack the expertise to expand the page. Really, I know nothing. So PLEASE HELP!!! -- Presearch (talk) 07:40, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

PS: One window on how to expand this article is to look at a variety of in-links from other Wikipedia articles that now now point to this article (I just added them) - click here for current list. This list shows how this region is mentioned in many other types of topics. -- Presearch (talk) 08:06, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Source for expansion

A terrific source for expanding the article, for those who can access it, is: A. Mandych (2006). Hartmut Vogtmann & Nikolai Dobretsov (ed.). "Conditions and trends in natural systems of the Altai-Sayan ecoregion". Environmental security and sustainable land use - with special reference to Central Asia. Springer Netherlands: 231–275. doi:10.1007/1-4020-4493-3_18.

Examples of text that could be (non-closely) paraphrased and integrated into article include:

• (from p. 236) More than 20 different indigenous ethnic groups that have lived together for centuries inhabit the Altai-Sayan ecoregion. Various ancient cultures (Scythian, Turkic, Ugro-Finnish, Iranian, Chinese and others) “merged” together in the region. A variety of languages of the Slavic, Turkic, and Mongolian families are spoken today. Different nationalities including Russians, Mongolians, Chinese, Kazakhs, Uighurs, Uzbeks, Altainians, Tuvinians, Buryats, Shores, Khakasians, Teleuts, Soyots and others live in the region making it really multicultural. The lifestyle and traditional occupations have much in common through the region and are based on the traditions of nomadic cattle-raising tribes. Nowadays, old traditions connected with pagan customs and shamanism, national holidays and traditional art (e.g. the unique musical art of throat singing) are being revived.
• (p. 239) Multinational composition of the population is characteristic of the ecoregion. Representatives of 40 nationalities inhabit the Russian part of the Region, whereas the Mongolian part is inhabited by 2 nationalities, the Chinese part by 13, and Kazakh part by 11. The Altai-Sayan ecoregion is home to many indigenous peoples, totalling 1.5 million persons (Climatic Passport, 2001) united in approximately 20 ethnic groups.

Best -- Presearch (talk) 19:42, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Minor contradiction

There seems to be a minor contradiction on page 236 in Mandych, where it is said that "The population consists of approximately 1.5 million people, with the majority still living in rural areas." This contradicts the figure on page 233 which shows Krasnoyarsk in the region (at the northern boundary, but still in the region), which has more than 900,000 population. The contradiction (at least inwardly within the chapter) would be resolved if this city was moved a few kilometers to the north, outside the region. --Presearch (talk) 19:42, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Although this is not clear, it could be that page 236 was referring only to indigenous population when it cited a figure of 1.5 million population. Later in the same chapter (p. 239) we are told that "The population of the Altai-Sayan ecoregion is 5.5 million." --Presearch (talk) 19:49, 25 January 2014 (UTC)