Erdenet is Mongolia's second-largest city, a planned industrial town built from scratch in the late 1970s around one of the world's largest copper and molybdenum deposits. The city itself is compact and walkable — you can cross it in twenty minutes on foot — and has a distinctly Soviet flavour in its layout and apartment blocks, a reminder that it was built as a joint Soviet-Mongolian project. Despite this utilitarian origin, Erdenet has settled into a comfortable modern city with a functioning centre, parks, and the kind of everyday Mongolian life that large tour groups rarely see.
The Erdenet Mining Corporation, which processes ore from the open-pit mine on the city's edge, is one of the largest employers in Mongolia and the mine is the foundation of the local economy. The mine is not open to casual visitors, but the scale of the operation is evident from the ridgelines above town. In the city, the main gathering point is the central square near the government building, where there is also a large sports complex with a public swimming pool and gym facilities.
Erdenet sits about 360 kilometres northwest of Ulaanbaatar, accessible by train — the Trans-Mongolian line passes through nearby Darkhan — or by road. It is sometimes used as an overnight stop for travellers heading toward Khövsgöl Lake, and it gives a reasonable sense of what a mid-sized Mongolian city looks like away from the capital.