Ulan-Ude in the context of "Buryatia"

The Buryats are a Mongolic ethnic group native to southeastern Siberia who speak the Buryat language. They are one of the two largest indigenous groups in Siberia, the other being the Yakuts. The majority of the Buryats today live in their titular homeland, the Republic of Buryatia, a federal subject of Russia which sprawls along the southern border and partially straddles Lake Baikal. Smaller groups of Buryats also inhabit Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug (Irkutsk Oblast) and the Agin-Buryat Okrug (Zabaykalsky Krai) which are to the west and east of Buryatia respectively as well as northeastern Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China. Traditionally, they formed the major northern subgroup of the Mongols.

Buryats share many customs with other Mongolic peoples, including nomadic herding, and erecting gers for shelter. Today the majority of Buryats live in and around Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryat Republic, although many still follow a more traditional lifestyle in the countryside. They speak a central Mongolic language called Buryat. UNESCO's 2010 edition of the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger classifies the Buryat language as "severely endangered".

Republic of Buryatia is a republic of Russia located in the Russian Far East. Formerly part of the Siberian Federal District, it has been administered as part of the Far Eastern Federal District since 2018. To its north lie Irkutsk Oblast and Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world; Zabaykalsky Krai to the east; Tuva to the west and Mongolia to the south. Its capital is the city of Ulan-Ude. It has an area of 351,300 square kilometers (135,600 sq mi) with a population of 978,588 (2021 Census). It is home to the indigenous Buryats.

Vitim Plateau is a plateau in Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia. The plateau is sparsely populated; the main settlements are Romanovka and Bagdarin. An area of the plateau is an ancient volcanic field with a number of cinder cones and volcanoes, the last of which was active about 810,000 years before present.

The P436 regional road connecting Ulan-Ude and Chita passes through Romanovka across the plateau.

The Uda (Russian: Уда́ [ʊˈda]; Buryat: Үдэ гол, romanized: Üde gol) is a river in the Buryat Republic, Russia. It is a right tributary of the Selenga, which it meets near the city Ulan-Ude. Its length is 467 kilometers (290 mi), and it has a drainage basin of 34,800 square kilometres (13,400 sq mi).

The Uda basin lies in the Tuguro-Chumikanskiy region. The word Uda is derived from the Yakut word üüt, meaning "milk". The name was conferred on the river owing to a nearby milk-colored lake.