Mongolian Geography

Western Mongolia is dominated by the Mongol Altai Mountains, which is stretched for 600-650 kilometers and were structured by thin hills, hollows and straight precipitous crags, which have a height of more than 4000 meters. The Great Lakes Depression is situated in the eastern part of the Mongol Altai and consisted of a few hollows with bigger lakes. The Altai mountain range stretching for 900 km across Russian, Mongolia, and China and the Tavan Bogd National Park have always stood out from any other part of Mongolia.

Gobi dominates southern part of Mongolia. Although Gobi is known as a desert, it offers a startlingly diverse landscape, from grassy pastures to dinosaur fossil beds, lunar landscapes, red sandstone formations and white sand dunes and provides grazing for herds of camels, sheep and goats as well as some rare animals as snow leopard, ibex, wild sheep and goats, and antelopes.

Mongolia is not a huge desert, but it is a country of fresh water lakes, rivers, magnificent mountains and heavily forested regions where hillsides and valley meadows are spangled with alpine flowers. Country covered by closed forests. The forests are mainly located in the north-central parts of the country, forming a transition zone between the Great Siberian boreal forest and the Central Asian steppe desert. Taiga zone which covers 5 percent of Mongolian territory occurs only in northern Mongolia, where it is found in the Khentii Mountains, in the mountainous terrain around Lake Khuvsgul, back part of Tarvagatai mountain range, first higher place near Orkhon river and some parts of Khan Khukhii mountain range.

Extensive grassland of steppe makes up the heart of Mongolia both geographically and economically. The entire far eastern part of Mongolia falls into this area extending west below Khangai range to the Great lake basin of Uvs province. 

If you travel in Mongolia you will see beautiful natural landscapes of Mongolia and fresh rivers, crystal clear lakes and icy streams.  Mongolia is the world's most extreme continental climate and notable aridity.  In spite of its aridity, Mongolia has substantial reserves of surface and ground water with almost 4000 rivers, the total length of which is more than 40,390 miles (65,000 km) and 16 large lakes. The rivers are inundated with fresh water resources and abundant fish populations. 

Mongolian travel and tour maps