The desert in northern China lying mostly inside the Ordos Loop of the Yellow River is the Ordos Desert.
The Ordos Desert occupies the arid northern part of the Ordos region, largely within Inner Mongolia. Its defining geographic feature is the great rectangular bend of the middle Yellow River, known as the Ordos Loop, which encircles the desert on its western, northern, and eastern sides.
The broader desert region includes two major sub-deserts: the Kubuqi Desert to the north and the Mu Us Desert to the south. The landscape is a mixture of dry clay and sand, with dunes, intermittent streams, salt lakes, and limited vegetation. Annual precipitation is generally below 250 millimetres, much of it arriving during summer thunderstorms.
The Ordos should not be confused with the Tengger or Badain Jaran deserts, which lie farther west in the Gobi and Alashan desert systems. Human activity has also shaped the region. Historic overgrazing, drought, and twentieth-century ecological disruption contributed to desertification, although parts of the Ordos now support herding, oasis agriculture, and mineral extraction.