Gobi

Gobi, extensive desert area, Central Asia, principally in Mongolia, sometimes called by the Chinese Shamo (“sand desert”). The Gobi, which is about 1,610 km (1,000 mi) in extent from east to west and about 970 km (600 mi) from north to south, is bounded by the Greater Khingan Range on the east, the Altun Shan and Nan Shan mountains on the south, the Tian Mountains on the west, and the Altai Mountains and Hangayn Nuruu (Khangai) mountains and Yablonovyy range on the north. The general form of the Gobi is that of a plateau between higher mountains. The height of the plateau ranges from 914 m (3,000 ft) above sea level in the east to 1,524 m (5,000 ft) in the west. The surface of the Gobi plateau consists in the main of rolling gravel plains, interspersed occasionally with low, flat-topped ranges and isolated hills that are the result of faulting action. Only the south-eastern portion of the Gobi is completely waterless. The remainder of the region, approximately three-quarters of the area, has a thin growth of grass, scrub, and thorn sufficient to feed the flocks of the nomadic herders who live there; water is available in wells and occasional shallow lakes. The borders of the Gobi to the north and north-west are fertile, and grassy steppes or prairies lie at the south-eastern edge of the desert area. Several caravan trails dating from ancient times cross the Gobi region. Among the more important are the routes from Partizansk (Suchan), Russia, to Hami, Xinjiang Uygur (Sinkiang Uighur) Autonomous Region of China, and from Zhangjiakou, Hebei (Ho-pei) Province, China, to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The first Europeans to traverse the Gobi were the Italian traveller Marco Polo and his father and uncle, who crossed the region about 1275. The next recorded crossing is that of the French Jesuit priest Jean François Gerbillon (1654-1707) in the 1680s. In modern times a number of expeditions have explored the Gobi, including expeditions commanded by the Swedish explorer Sir Sven Anders Hedin. The American Museum of Natural History in New York sponsored (1921-1930) a series of expeditions under the leadership of the American naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews. The expeditions discovered fossilized dinosaur eggs in the Gobi. Archaeological finds in the Gobi include remains of Eolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, Azilian, Neolithic, and Bronze Age civilizations.