Welcome to the land of dinosaurs, mammals and trails of the ancient human. Mongolian Gobi is the enchanting world with a millennia of history for travelers. Experiences found in its impressive sand dunes and  exciting wild plateaus will be lifetime adventure. Enjoy the nomadic lifestyle while visiting the past in this ancient land.

The Gobi Desert (Mongolian Gobi) is a large, cold desert and grassland region in southern Mongolia and is the 6^th largest desert in the world. The name of the desert comes from the Mongolian word Gobi, used to refer to all of the waterless regions in the Mongolian Plateau.

The Gobi measures 1,600 km (1,000 mi) from southwest to northeast and 800 km (500 mi) from north to south. In its broadest definition, the Gobi includes the long stretch of desert extending from the foot of the Pamirs (77° east) to the Greater Khingan Mountains, 116–118° east, on the border of Manchuria; and from the foothills of the Altai, Sayan, and Yablono mountain ranges^[2] on the north to the Kunlun, Altyn-Tagh, and Qilian mountain ranges, which form the northern edges of the Tibetan Plateau, on the south.

The Gobi is overall a cold desert, with frost and occasionally snow occurring on its dunes. Besides being quite far north, it is also located on a plateau roughly 910–1,520 m (2,990–4,990 ft) above sea level, which contributes to its low temperatures. An average of about 194 mm (7.6 in) of rain falls annually in the Gobi. Additional moisture reaches parts of the Gobi in winter as snow is blown by the wind from the Siberian Steppes. These winds may cause the Gobi to reach −40 °C (−40 °F) in winter to 45 °C (113 °F) in summer.

However, the climate of the Gobi is one of great extremes, with rapid changes of temperature of as much as 35 °C (63 °F) in 24-hour spans.

Most of the precipitation falls during the summer.

Although the southeast “monsoons” reach the southeast parts of the Gobi, the area throughout this region is generally characterized by extreme dryness, especially during the winter, when the Siberian anticyclone is at its strongest. The southern and central parts of the Gobi Desert have variable plant growth due to this monsoon. The more northern areas of the Gobi are very cold and dry, making it unable to support much plant growth; this cold and dry weather is attributed to Siberian-Mongolian high pressure cells. Hence, the icy dust and snowstorm of spring and early summer plus early January (winter).

The land of dinosaurs

The Gobi Desert is the source of many important fossils finds, including the first dinosaur eggs , twenty-six of which, averaging 23 centimetres (9 in) in length, were uncovered in 1923.

Archeologists and paleontologists have done excavations in the Nemegt Basin in the northwestern part of the Gobi Desert (in Mongolia), which is noted for its fossil treasures, including early mammals, dinosaur eggs, and prehistoric stone tools, some 100,000 years old.

Despite the harsh conditions, these deserts and the surrounding regions sustain many animals species, some are even unique, including black-tailed gazelles, marbled polecats, wild Bactrian camels, Mongolian wild ass (Mongolian Khulan), and sandplovers. They are occasionally visited by snow leopards, Gobi bear Mazaalai, and wolves

Mining deposits

Large copper deposits are being mined by several companies such as Rio Tinto. 

The Gobi Desert is expanding through desertification, most rapidly on the southern edge into China, which is seeing 3,600 km² (1,390 sq mi) of grassland overtaken every year. Dust storms increased in frequency between 1996 and 2016, causing further damage to China's agriculture economy. However, in some areas desertification has been slowed or reversed.

The northern and eastern boundaries between desert and grassland are constantly changing. This is mostly due to the climate conditions before the growing season, which influence the rate of evapotranspiation and subsequent plant growth.

The expansion of the Gobi is attributed mostly to human activities, locally driven by deforestation, overgazing, and depletion of water resources, as well as to climate change.

Nikolai Przhevalsky said, "it is a perfectly level plain, which in all probability once formed the bed of a huge lake or inland sea." He concludes this based on the level area of the region as a whole, the hard saline clay and the sand-strewn surface and, lastly, the salt lakes which occupy its lowest parts. For hundreds of kilometers, nothing can be seen but bare sands; in some places, they continue so far without a break that the Mongols call them Tengger (i.e. sky).

The Gobi had a long history of human habitation, mostly by nomadic peoples. The name of Gobi means desert in Mongolian. The Gobi Desert as a whole was known only very imperfectly to outsiders, as information was confined to observations by individual travelers engaging in their respective itineraries across the desert. Among the European and American explorers who contributed to the understanding of the Gobi, the most important were the following:

Roy Chapman Andrews (1884 –1960) was an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He led a series of expeditions early 20th century into the Gobi Desert and Mongolia. The expeditions made important discoveries and brought the first-known fossil dinosaur eggs to the museum. Chapman's popular writing about his adventures made him famous.

Roy Chapman Andrews on his horse Kublai Khan in Mongolia about 1920

1921 cover of Across Mongolian Plains: A Naturalist's Account of China's Great Northwest by Andrews

On The Trail of Ancient Man by Roy Chapman Andrews, 1926