What is the Gobi Desert?

The Gobi Desert is a vast desert and semidesert region in Central Asia that stretches across parts of Mongolia and China. The Mongolian word gobi means "waterless place". Much of the Gobi isn't sandy desert but bare rock, which can be driven over by car. The Gobi is known as a "cold desert" because of its extreme climate, with bitter winters and very hot summers. It experiences sharp seasonal temperature contrasts and significant temperature fluctuations between day and night. The population density is small, and the main occupation of the inhabitants is nomadic cattle raising. Since the 1950s, population increase and the overuse of marginal lands have decreased vegetation cover and increased soil erosion, resulting in an overall expansion of the desert area of the Gobi.

What type of climate does the Gobi Desert have?

The Gobi Desert , located in Central Asia, is known as a cold desert due to its extreme climate. It spans parts of northern China and southern Mongolia. The Gobi has acutely continental and dry conditions, with severe winters, dry, cold springs, and warm summers. The annual temperature range is considerable, with average lows in January reaching -40 °F (-40 °C) and average highs in July climbing to 113 °F (45 °C). Daily temperature ranges can also be quite large. The annual total precipitation varies from less than 2 inches (50 mm) in the west to more than 8 inches (200 mm) in the northeast. Northerly and northwesterly winds prevail over the Gobi in autumn, winter, and spring. The Gobi's climate makes it a climatically extreme environment, with unique adaptations in its ecosystem.

What kinds of plants and animals live in the Gobi Desert?

The Gobi Desert is a cold desert located in northern China and southern Mongolia. Despite its harsh climate, a variety of plants and animals have adapted to survive there. Plant life is sparse but includes small bushes like yellowwood bean caper, winter fat, and nitre bush. Halophilous groups such as potash bush and tamarisk are common in salt marshes. Saxaul, sandy wormwood, and herbs like Gobi kumarchik and timuriya grow in the sand. Semidesert areas have richer vegetation, including Gobi feather grass and snakeweed. The Gobi's fauna includes large mammals like wild camels, kulan, dzheiran gazelles, and dzeren. Marmots, gophers, and reptiles are also present. The Przewalski's horse once lived in the western Gobi but is likely extinct in the wild. The wild Bactrian camel is critically endangered and primarily lives in the Gobi Desert.

How have people adapted to living in the Gobi Desert?

The Gobi Desert spans parts of northern China and southern Mongolia. People living in the Gobi Desert, such as Mongolian nomads, have adapted to the harsh conditions and seasonal variations by developing lifestyles suited to the desert. The main occupation of the inhabitants is nomadic cattle raising. Herds move several times a year, migrating as much as 120 miles (190 km) between extreme points. The traditional living quarters of the Mongol nomads are felt yurts and orgers (types of tent), while the Chinese farmers live in clay homes built from crude brick. Pasturage for cattle is available throughout the year because of underground water supplies.

Why is the Gobi Desert important for history and trade in Asia?

The Gobi Desert, a vast, waterless expanse in Central Asia, has played a significant role in Asian history and trade. The ancient Silk Road traversed the southern part of the Alxa Plateau and crossed the Gaxun Gobi, acting as a crucial caravan route that connected China with Central Asia and the West. This route facilitated the exchange of goods and ideas between diverse cultures, including silk, wools, gold, silver, Nestorian Christianity, and Buddhism. Although the Silk Road became unsafe due to the loss of Roman territory and the rise of Arabian power, it was revived in the 13th and 14th centuries under the Mongols. The Gobi Desert also contains Paleolithic and Neolithic sites occupied by ancient peoples.

Gobi

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Images

Physical map of the Gobi Desert region spanning southern Mongolia and northern China, showing major mountain ranges, sand areas, salt lakes, and spot elevations in meters. The map uses color shading to indicate elevation and includes a small locator map highlighting the Gobi Desert's position in Asia.

Map of Asia highlighting the location of the Gobi Desert in orange, spanning southern Mongolia and northern China. Surrounding regions and continents, including Europe, Africa, and the Pacific Ocean, are also shown for geographic context.

Tire tracks from vehicles cross the rocky, barren surface of the Gobi Desert, leading toward jagged sandstone formations under a cloudy sky.

A group of Bactrian camels grazes on green vegetation in the Gobi Desert, with large sand dunes rising in the background.

A group of expedition members push a large baggage cart loaded with supplies and topped with a dog and an American flag through sandy terrain in the Gobi Desert.

At a Glance

Gobi summary

Gobi

desert, Asia

Also known as: Gobi Desert

Written by

Mikhail Platonovich PetrovAll

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Oct. 2, 2026 •History

News •

Like dinosaur eggs in the sand: the pterosaur museum built to thrive in the Gobi desert • Oct. 16, 2026, 4:07 AM ET (The Guardian)

Gobi, great desert and semidesert region of Central Asia. The Gobi (from Mongolian gobi, meaning “waterless place”) stretches across huge portions of both Mongolia and China. Contrary to the perhaps romantic image long associated with what—at least to the European mind—was a remote and unexplored region, much of the Gobi is not sandy desert but bare rock. It is possible to drive over this surface by car for long distances in any direction: northward toward the Altai and Hangayn mountain ranges, eastward toward the Da Hinggan (Greater Khingan) Range, or southward toward the Bei Mountains and Huang He (Yellow River) valley. To the west, beyond the southwestern limit of the Gobi, lies another arid expanse—the Tarim Basin of the southern Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang—which encompasses the Takla Makan Desert and is enclosed by the Tien Shan ranges to the north and the Kunlun and western Altun mountains to the south.

The Gobi occupies a vast arc of land 1,000 miles (1,600 km) long and 300 to 600 miles (500 to 1,000 km) wide, with an estimated area of 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km). In the present discussion, the Gobi is defined as lying between the Altai Mountains and Hangayn Mountains to the north; the western edge of the Da Hinggan Range to the east; the Yin, Qilian, eastern Altun, and Bei mountains to the south; and the eastern Tien Shan to the west.

Physical features

Physiography

The Gobi consists of the Gaxun, Junggar (Dzungarian), and Trans-Altai Gobi in the west, the Eastern, or Mongolian, Gobi in the centre and east, and the Alxa Plateau (Ala Shan Desert) in the south.

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The Gaxun Gobi is bounded by the spurs of the Tien Shan to the west and the Bei Mountains to the south and rises to elevations as high as 5,000 feet (1,500 metres). It is gently corrugated, with a complex labyrinth of wide hollows separated by flat hills and rocky crests sometimes rising more than 300 feet (90 metres) above the plain. The desert is stony and nearly waterless, though salt marshes lie in the secluded depressions. The soil is grayish brown and contains gypsum and halite (rock salt). Vegetation is rare, though richer in the riverbeds, where there are individual shrubs of tamarisk, saxaulon and nitre bush (a saltwort), and annual halophytes (salt-tolerant plants).

The Trans-Altai Gobi is situated between the eastern spurs of the Mongolian Altai and Gobi Altai mountains to the north and east, respectively, and the Bei Mountains to the south. The plain is elevated, sharp, and rugged. Alongside the plains and the isolated group of low, rounded hills is a fairly extensive mountain area that extends more than six miles out into the plain. The mountains are barren and broken up by dry ravines. The western section of the Trans-Altai Gobi is basically a plain, too, but it is interspersed with small raised areas and furrowed by dry riverbeds and, again, with extensive salt marshes. In the central portion this fragmentation increases, and mesas (flat-topped, steep-sided hills) appear along with dry gullies ending in flat depressions, occupied by takyr (clayey tracts). The Trans-Altai Gobi is parched, with annual precipitation of less than 4 inches (100 mm), though there is always water underground. There are virtually no wells and springs, however, and vegetation is very sparse and almost useless for livestock.

Arabian Camel (Camelus dromedarius) in the Sahara Desert sand dunes. (pack animal; sand; Morocco; Africa; African desert; mammal; dromedary; drought)

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The Junggar Gobi is north of the Gaxun Gobi, in the Junggar Basin between the eastern spurs of the Mongolian Altai and the eastern extremity of the Tien Shan. It resembles the Trans-Altai Gobi, and its edges are fractured by ravines, alternating with residual hills and low mountain ridges.

The Alxa Plateau is situated between the China-Mongolia border to the north, the Huang He and Helan Mountains to the east, the Qilian to the south, and the northern reaches of the Hei River to the west. It consists of a vast, nearly barren plain that rises in altitude from northwest to southeast. Large areas of the Alxa are sand-covered.

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The Eastern Gobi is similar to the western regions, with elevations varying from 2,300 to 5,000 feet (700 to 1,500 metres), but it receives somewhat more precipitation—up to 8 inches (200 mm) per year—though it lacks significant rivers. The underground aquifers have relatively abundant quantities of water and are only partly mineralized. They are also near the surface, feeding small lakes and springs. The vegetation, however, is sparse, consisting mainly of herb wormwood in coarse, grayish brown soil. In the moister depressions there are the usual salt marshes and grassy swamps. In the northern and eastern outlying regions, where more precipitation occurs, the landscape of the desert gradually becomes less harsh, or sometimes even steppelike.

Geology

MongoliaRock formations in the Eastern (Mongolian) Gobi near Töhöm, southeastern Mongolia.

The Gobi’s plains consist of chalk and other sedimentary rocks that are chiefly Cenozoic in age (i.e., up to about 66 million years old), though some of the low, isolated hills are older. The terrain contains small masses of shifting sands. In the central Gobi the remains of dinosaurs from the Mesozoic Era (about 252 million to 66 million years ago) and fossils of Cenozoic mammals have been found. The desert also contains Paleolithic and Neolithic sites occupied by ancient peoples. Successful excavations undertaken during the 1990s at the Tsagaan Agui (White Cave) in southwest-central Mongolia have produced artifacts up to 35,000 years old.

Gobi

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Physical features

Physiography

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Geology