Since ancient times the word "Gobi" meaning "desert" in all Ural-Altaic languages was referred to in literature as shamo. It is on account of the fact that the word "Gobi" is translated into many foreign languages as a desert. That foreigners often imagine the Gobi to a desert. However visitors to the Gobi are quickly persuaded that the word desert is a misnomer.
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The Mongolian Gobi, a vast zone of desert and semi-desert occupying almost 30% of our country's vast territory, is a well-renowned place. The Gobi is often imagined to be place of unbearable heat and lifeless sand dunes, similar to the inhospitable and uninhabitable Sahara desert. Whereas the reality is quite the reverse. The Great Mongolian Gobi (the western part is located inside China, now) has high mountains, springs, forests, sands, steppe lands and rich animal kingdom, and has been inhabited since ancient times. To put it another way, the Mongolian Gobi has the vast plains of Europe, the majestic peaks and mountain ranges of Asia, the sand dunes and sandy valleys of Africa, and thus could be called the land of the three continents. You will see there an eternally clear sky, blue mirages, golden sands and boundlessly expansive steppe lands.
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Furthermore, the Mongolian Gobi is not a single notion. There are no less than 33 different types of Gobi in Mongolia, of which sandy desert occupies only three percent of the total area. The Gobi is situated in the southern part of the country and it covers the provinces of East Gobi, Middle Gobi, South Gobi, and Gobi Altai, all sharing the name of Gobi. One of these four Gobi, the South Gobi occupies the biggest and southern most area, belong to the territory of the South Gobi Province (aimag).
The Gobi houses enormous wealth including numerous rare animal species as for example the mountain sheep (argali), ibex, snow leopard, lynx, wild ass (khulan), gazelles, saiga, khavtgai (wild camel, ancestor of the bactrian camel), mazaalai (gobi bear), fox, wolf, steppe fox, as well as different trees and plants: khargana, tamarisk, red trees, and wild thyme to name but few. Equally there are a wealth of precious and semi-precious stones including turquoise, jasper, agate and crystal.
Yoliin Am (Yol Valley)
The Yol Valley, a protected site in 1965, is 62 kilometres north-west of Dalanzadgad. Very wide at the entrance, it narrows gradually into a remarkable gorge. A spring two or three kilometers long winds its way through the defile and in July, freezing into a thick corridor of ice that stretches along a considerable distance. Following the canyon to the very end, one emerges into a beautiful wide valley.
Bayanzag (Flaming Cliffs)
It is a Neolithic site where the large dinosaur skeletons on show in the Ulaanbaatar Natural History Museum were found. In the west it is better known as the Flaming Cliffs, so named by explorer Roy Chapman Andrews. In the same are he also discovered petrified forests, remains of mammals, and in particular the skeleton of a hornless rhinoceros, the largest known mammal in the world. Bayanzag is in Bulgan sum in a desert zone that as its name suggests, is strewn with saxaul bushes.
The Hongoryn Els (Hongor Sand Dunes)
Dunes are north of the Baruunsaikhan Mountains, and in the northern part of the Sevrei and Zuulun Mountains, about 200 kilometres west of Dalanzadgad in Sevrei sum. They extend for 185 kilometres and include dunes that can reach 20 metres in height. The sound produced by the masses of moving sand can be heard from afar, and when it occurs, it is said that it can be mistaken for the sound of an aeroplane. Hence their name "singing sands", or "musical sands". Near Hongor River at the northern edge of the dunes, is an oasis.
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