The Gobi Desert spans southern Mongolia and northern China, forming one of East Asia’s largest arid regions.
Unlike many popular images of deserts, the Gobi is not dominated by vast dune fields. Its landscape includes gravel plains, rocky outcrops, bare mountains, and limited areas of shifting sand. The name comes from a Mongolian word meaning “very large and dry.”
The Gobi has a strongly continental climate. Winters can be extremely cold, while summer temperatures rise sharply, making it a cold desert rather than a hot desert. The region is also famous for fossils, including dinosaur eggs and specimens discovered in Mongolia’s Flaming Cliffs, or Bayanzag.
The Gobi is sometimes confused with China’s Taklamakan Desert, which lies farther west in the Tarim Basin. The Gobi instead stretches across the borderlands of Mongolia and northern China, including parts of Inner Mongolia.