The Gobi is the largest desert in Asia, the fifth largest desert in the world. Its name, translated from Mongolian, means “waterless place”. The desert today literally beckons travelers looking for variety and new experiences.
The Gobi stretches from the Altai Mountains in the southwest to the North China Plateau in the northeast for 1600 km and from the Mongolian steppes in the north to the Nanshan Mountains, Altindag and the Yellow River in the south for 800 km.
The Gobi is the eastern edge of a huge "desert" arc that originates in the west, off the coast of the Atlantic in the Sahara Desert. This area is the bottom of the ancient Tethys Ocean and its shelf seas. Their disappearance, presumably about 40 million years ago, occurred as a result of the gradual rise of all of Central Asia and the formation of many mountain ranges around.
Climate
Today the Gobi rises 800-1700 m above sea level, and some Altai ridges reach 3000 m. Elevation changes and enormous length cause extreme temperature fluctuations: from -550C in winter to +58 - + 70C in summer, creating a sharply continental climate, with different climatic features in each of the 33 mini-deserts, into which the Mongols conditionally divide the Gobi. Here are some of them: Solonchakovaya, Yellow, Black, Red, Blagodatnaya, Vostochnaya, Gashunskaya, Dzhungarskaya, Gobi Altai, etc.
Landscape
The landscape of the many-sided Gobi is woven of flowering spring plains and dry steppes, rare oases near springs with crystal water (kuchkuduks) and salt marshes, rocky mountains and sand dunes, saxaul groves, rocky and clayey hamads (deserts), dried gravel saury and, of course, mirages.
Fauna
The fauna of the Gobi is also diverse. Black-tailed gazelles, wolves, camels, saigas, mountain rams, argali, gazelles, kulans, gazelles, gobi bears are just some of those who have adapted to the harsh climate of the Gobi, not counting lizards, phalanxes and invertebrates.
Since ancient times, the Gobi has kept many secrets and mysteries, and its wild expanses are still unknown to the end. Sometimes she reveals her secrets to people. At different times, during excavations, ancient remains were found: prehistoric dinosaurs, giant dinosaurs and their fossilized eggs, the skeleton of a fifteen-meter humanoid creature, human horned skulls, and so on.
Legends
Locals keep many beliefs and legends about their Gobi. For example, about the multitude of spirits emitting different sounds, pursuing a lonely traveler, about the giant worm olgoy-khorhoy, and many other things that do not fit into the framework of the usual perception of the world.
The Great Desert attracts travelers from all over the world - lovers of extreme sports and romance. Horseback riding, high-speed races on sandy dunes and plateaus on motorcycles and jeeps, visiting the ruins of the empire of the great Chinggis Khan and the wondrous beauty of oases will give you a bouquet of unforgettable impressions.
