Where is the Gobi Desert?
Quick answer
The Gobi Desert covers much of northern China and southern Mongolia, in Central Asia. At about 1.3 million km² (500,000 square miles), it’s the largest desert in Asia. Unlike the Sahara, the Gobi is mostly bare rock and gravel, not sand, and it’s a cold desert, with winters below −40°C.
Why the Gobi is a desert
The Gobi lies in a rain shadow: the Himalayas to the south block moist air from the Indian Ocean. Much of it gets less than 200 mm (8 inches) of rain a year.
Extreme temperatures
| Season | Typical temperatures |
|---|---|
| Summer | Up to about 45°C (113°F) |
| Winter | Down to about −40°C (−40°F) |
Temperatures can swing by 35°C in a single day. Snow often covers the dunes in winter.
What lives there
Despite the harsh conditions, the Gobi is home to:
- Bactrian camels, with two humps, including rare wild ones
- Snow leopards in the mountains
- Gobi bears, one of the rarest bears in the world
- Przewalski’s horses, wild horses reintroduced to Mongolia
Nomadic Mongolian herders have lived here for centuries, moving with their animals and living in round felt tents called gers (yurts).
Dinosaur treasure trove
The Gobi is one of the world’s best places for dinosaur fossils. In the 1920s, American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews discovered the first known dinosaur eggs there. The Flaming Cliffs have also yielded fossils of Velociraptor and Protoceratops.
A growing desert
The Gobi is expanding by thousands of square kilometers a year through desertification, causing dust storms that can reach Beijing, Korea and Japan. China’s “Great Green Wall” tree-planting project aims to slow it down.
The Gobi is one of the world’s great natural landscapes. For a bigger picture of Earth’s land and sea, see the largest island in the world and why biodiversity is important.
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