This article examines the Ulaanbaatar phenomenon. The capital city of Mongolia actually contains all the external ideas about the country, but in essence it is not Mongolia, being a kind of city-state that exists separately in the country's socio-cultural space. The author defines the significance of the metropolitan ethnocultural space, its images and meanings in the self-identification practices of modern Mongols. A brief historical overview of the urban planning tradition of the Mongols is offered, which shows an active external influence and an almost complete absence of local character in this process. This is not unique to the nomadic culture, which denies any urban settlement, static and immobile. Based on opinion polls and qualitative observations, attention is drawn to one important paradox of the modern Mongolian society. It boils down, on the one hand, to the stable appeal of the older generation to nomadic, pastoral traditions as the basis for the existence of the modern Mongolian nation and civilization. On the other hand, it is associated with the desire to organize the life of their descendants in the city and not pass on to them the values of the nomadic society. In conclusion, it is summed up that it is the city that enables the former Mongolian steppe, who moved here to a potential permanent residence, to feel in its entirety the identity of a nomad, not limited by the framework of livestock farming, but filled with images and ideas about their own traditional culture. These are the ideas about their culture, expressed most often in the understanding of nomadism as a mobile pastime, that determine the current ethnicity of the Mongols.