Most people will have heard of Kazakhstan by way of the spoof documentary Borat. This time the central Asian nation is in the spotlight for something real, as a victim of global selloff in emerging-market assets. After the country abandoned control of the tenge, the currency lost a quarter of its value.

Here's what you need to know about this vast land-locked country, literally caught between a rock and a hard place.

1. Kazakhstan isn't poor and has only ever had one ruler. Despite being almost the size of Argentina, only 17.5 million people live here. That's less than the population of New York state. Before the currency blow, Kazakhstan's gross domestic product per capita was set to overtake Russia and was already higher than Brazil's. Nursultan Nazarbayev, 75, who has been in power since 1989 and has immunity from prosecution for life, is the only president the country has had in its 24 years of independence after the Soviet Union collapsed.