Deserts of Asia
The Gobi Desert
The Gobi is a desert and semiarid region in Central Asia, spanning large areas of both Mongolia and China, totaling an estimated 500,000 square miles. Much of the Gobi is bare rock, rather than sandy desert, and there are areas where cars can travel for long distances on the mostly smooth surface. The bare landscape means little to no vegetation grows there, except within the occasional riverbed. Some areas of the Gobi are completely parched, receiving less than four inches of rain a year. Other areas receive a little more precipitation, but the Gobi still lacks significant water sources. The Gobi experiences extreme shifts in annual temperature—from lows dropping to −40 °F (−40 °C) in January to highs climbing to 113 °F (45 °C) in July. There can also be a wide variance between the daily highs and the daily lows. Because of the extreme and remote conditions, very few people live in the Gobi—in fact, there are fewer than three persons per square mile. It is mostly inhabited by Mongols; but there are increasingly more Chinese inhabitants who live a nomadic lifestyle raising cattle.
The Arabian Peninsula is almost entirely covered by desert. Barren desert land covers approximately 900,000 square miles of the peninsula, enveloping most of Saudi Arabia, as well as Yemen in the southwest and Oman along its eastern border. Along the Persian Gulf, it extends into the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. And, north of Saudi Arabia, the desert reaches into Kuwait and Jordan. The significant feature of the Arabian Peninsula is the Rub’al-Khali, one of the world’s largest continuous bodies of sand. The seas surrounding the peninsula are a stark contrast to the dryness of the desert and lack of water; a series of mountain ranges encloses the desert itself, creating a rain shadow that keeps rainfall to an absolute minimum, resulting in the desert environment. Despite the barren landscape, though, the area has proven to be a valuable source for oil, natural gas, and other natural resources. Prior to the discovery of fossil fuels in the region, the Arabian Desert was used mostly by its inhabitants, the Bedouins, as a breeding ground for camels. They also relied on the fertile oasis to cultivate date palms and other heat- and drought-resistant crops.