Districts of Mongolia

This article is about the administrative subdivisions of Mongolia. For other uses, see Sum (country subdivision).

Administrative divisions of Mongolia
First level
Province aimag (аймаг) Capital city niislel (нийслэл)
Second level
District sum (сум) Municipal District düüreg (дүүрэг)
Third level
Bag (баг) Khoroo (хороо)

A sum (Mongolian: сум, arrow, sometimes rendered as soum or—from the Russian form—as somon, or translated as district) is a second level administrative subdivision of Mongolia. The 21 aimags of Mongolia are divided into 329 sums.^[1]

On average, each sum administers a territory of 4,200 km² with about 5,000 inhabitants, primarily nomadic herders. It has total revenues of 120 million Tögrög, 90% of which comes from national subsidies.

Each sum is again subdivided into bags (sometimes rendered as baghs^[1]). Most bags are of an entirely virtual nature. Their purpose is to sort the families of nomads in the sum into groups, without a permanent human settlement.

Officially, and occasionally on maps, many sum centers bear a name different from that of the sum. However, in practice the sum center is most often referred to under the name of the sum, to the point of the official name of the center being unknown even to the locals.