Factbox: Key facts about Kazakhstan

(Reuters) - Following are facts about Kazakhstan, which holds a presidential election on Sunday. * President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is now 74, is seeking re-election for a new five-year term. He has ruled the oil-producing Central Asian nation since 1989 and is officially called "Leader of the Nation". * Nazarbayev is challenged by Turgun Syzdykov, 67, a senior member of the largely loyal Popular Communist Party of Kazakhstan, and by 63-year-old Abelgazi Kusainov, a trade union leader and a former regional governor. * Voting begins at 7 a.m. and ends at 8 p.m. local time. Kazakhstan's capital Astana is six hours ahead of GMT, but a large part of the country lies on GMT plus five hours. * There are 9.5 million eligible voters in Kazakhstan. There is no minimum turnout needed to make the election valid. * The Central Election Commission says up to 48 hours will be needed to publish preliminary results. But early vote counts may be published in the first hours of Monday, April 27. * Kazakhstan is the second-largest economy among former Soviet republics and the second-largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union. It is the world's No. 1 producer of uranium and an important exporter of industrial metals and wheat. * Kazakhstan's gross domestic product is officially forecast to rise by 1.5 percent this year after growing by 4.3 percent in 2014. * Landlocked Kazakhstan is the world's ninth largest country with an area of 2,699,700 sq km (1.042 million sq miles) and is slightly larger than Western Europe. Most of the country is flat, with the Tien-Shan mountain range running along part of its southern edge. * Kazakhstan's population is estimated at 17.4 million. Kazakhs make up around 67 percent of the population, Russians 23 percent, Uzbeks 3 percent, Ukrainians 2. There are also Uighur, Tatar and German minorities. (Compiled by Dmitry Solovyov; editing by Ralph Boulton)