Geography

Mongolia lies in Central Asia between Russia, to the north, and China, to the south. Mongolia has an area of 1,564,116 square kilometres or 971,896.62 square miles. In terms of the United States, this means Mongolia is slightly larger than Alaska. The entire country is very diverse in the geographical regions that make it up. These diverse regions include mountain-forest steppe, mountain steppe and in the extreme south, semi-desert and desert. The capital city of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar is located in a mountain-forest steppe area of the country. The average elevation of Mongolia is 5,814 feet with the highest point being 14,350 feet (Hüiten Peak in the west) and the lowest being 1,838 feet (central plains).





In Mongolia there are three different mountain ranges. The highest is the Altai Mountains. These mountains stretch from the western to the southwestern regions of Mongolia in a northwest to southeast way. The Hangayn Nuruu also lie on a northwest to southeast axis and these mountains occupy a good portion of central and north central Mongolia. The Hangayn Nurru are older and more eroded with many forests and alpine pastures lining their slopes. Finally, the Hentiyn Nurru are the mountains that border the Russian Border to the northeast of Ulaanbaatar.



The Gobi Desert is one of the world's most famous deserts and amounts to about 30% of Mongolia's land. The Gobi Desert covers a good portion of southern Mongolia and has an extremely harsh climate. Summer nights can be upwards of 120F while winter nights can be as cold as -40F. While most deserts are generally sand the Gobi is an exception. In fact the majority of the Gobi Desert is black rock which makes travelling a little more manageable.

http://geography.about.com/library/cia/blcmongolia.htm

http://countrystudies.us/mongolia/33.htm

http://gobidesert.org