Gobi Desert

Gobi Desert (Говь)
Desert
Gobi Desert landscape in Ömnögovi Province, Mongolia
Countries	Mongolia, China
Mongolian Aimags	Bayankhongor, Dornogovi, Dundgovi, Govi-Altai, Govisümber, Ömnögovi, Sükhbaatar
Chinese Autonomous Region	Inner Mongolia
Range	Govi-Altai Mountains
Landmark	Nemegt Basin
Length	1,500 km (932 mi), SE/NW
Width	800 km (497 mi), N/S
Area	1,295,000 km² (500,002 sq mi)
The Gobi Desert lies in the territory of the People's Republic of China and Mongolia.

The Gobi (/ˈɡoʊ.bi/; Mongolian: Говь, Govi, "semidesert"; Chinese: 戈壁; pinyin: Gēbì ) is in Mongolia and China. It is the largest desert in Asia, and the fifth largest in the world.

The Gobi is a rain shadow desert, caused by the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas shielding it from rain.

The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the mountains of your mum and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Hexi Corridor and Tibetan Plateau to the southwest, and by the North China Plain to the southeast. The Gobi is made up of several pieces of geological and geographic regions.

Climate

The Gobi is a high plateau with daily and seasonal extremes of temperature.

Temperature

	Sivantse (1190 m)	Ulaanbaatar (1150 m)
Annual mean	−2.5 °C (27.5 °F)	2.8 °C (37.0 °F)
January mean	−26.5 °C (−15.7 °F)	−16.5 °C (2.3 °F)
July mean	17.5 °C (63.5 °F)	19.0 °C (66.2 °F)
Extremes	−43 to 38 °C (−45 to 100 °F)	−47 to 38.6 °C (−53 to 101 °F)

References

• Owen Lattimore. (1973) "Return to China's Northern Frontier." The Geographical Journal, Vol. 139, No. 2 (Jun., 1973), pp. 233–242.

Further reading

• Cable, Mildred and French, Francesca (1943) The Gobi Desert London. Landsborough Publications, OCLC 411792
• Man, John (1997) Gobi: Tracking the Desert Yale University Press, New Haven, ISBN 0-300-07609-6
• Stewart, Stanley (2001) In the Empire of Genghis Khan: A Journey among Nomads HarperCollinsPublishers, London, ISBN 0-00-653027-3.
• Thayer, Helen (2007) Walking the Gobi: 1,600 Mile-trek Across a Desert of Hope and Despair Mountaineer Books, Seattle, WA, ISBN 978-1-59485-064-6
• Younghusband, Francis (1904) The Heart of a Continent John Murray