Mongolian State Organisations
Foreign Investment & Trade Agency of Mongolia
Mongolian Consular Information Land
Located in the landlocked plateau of Central Asia between China and Russian Siberia, Mongolia covers an area of 1,566,500 sq. km. Mongolia stretches about 2,400 kilometers from west to east and about 1,260 kilometers from north to south. The total length of the country's borders is 8,158 km. The geography of the country is characterized by great diversity. From north to south it can be divided into four areas: mountain-forest steppe, mountain steppe and in the extreme south, semi-desert and desert (the latter being about 30% of the entire territory).
The country is mountainous with an average altitude of 1,580 meters above sea level. The principal mountains are concentrated in the west, with much of this region having elevations above 2,000 meters and the country's highest peaks permanently snow-capped land covered with glaciers. The lowest point is Hukh lake, 560 meters above sea level, and the highest point is Huiten peak in the Mongolian Altai mountain range (4,374 m). The capital of Ulaanbaatar lies at 1,350 meters.
The country Is dotted with hundreds of lakes, the largest being Uvs-Nuur (covering an area of 3,350 sq. km.), Huvsgul (2,620 sq. km.) and Khar Us-Nuur (1,852 sq. km). The Orkhon (1,124 kilometers), the Kherlen (1090 kilometers) and the Selenge (539 kilometers) are the largest rivers. Mountains and dense forests pre-dominate central and northern Mongolia and grasslands cover large areas of this region. Across the eastern part of the country stretches the vast grasslands of the Asian steppe. The steppe gradually fades into the Gobi desert, which extends throughout southern Mongolia from the east to west. The Gobi is mostly rocky dirt and silt dotted with gravel, but also contains sand dunes in the drier areas near the southern border.
Climate
Mongolia is high, cold, and dry. It has an extreme continental climate with long, cold winters and short summers, during which most precipitation falls. The country averages 257 cloudless days a year, and it is usually at the center of a region of high atmospheric pressure. Precipitation is highest in the north, which averages 20 to 35 centimeters per year, and lowest in the south, which receives 10 to 20 centimeters. The extreme south is the Gobi, some regions of which receive no precipitation at all in most years. The name Gobi is a Mongol word meaning desert, depression, salt marsh, or steppe, but which usually refers to a category of arid rangeland with insufficient vegetation to support marmots but with enough to support camels. Mongols distinguish gobi from desert proper, although the distinction is not always apparent to outsiders unfamiliar with the Mongolian landscape. Gobi rangelands are fragile and are easily destroyed by overgrazing, which results in expansion of the true desert, a stony waste where not even Bactrian camels can survive.
Average temperatures over most of the country are below freezing from November through March and are about freezing in April and October. January and February averages of -20° C are common, with winter nights of -40° C occurring most years. Summer extremes reach as high as 38° C in the southern Gobi region and 33° C in Ulaanbaatar. More than half the country is covered by permafrost, which makes construction, road building, and mining difficult. All rivers and freshwater lakes freeze over in the winter, and smaller streams commonly freeze to the bottom. Ulaanbaatar lies at 1,351 meters above sea level in the valley of the Tuul Gol, a river. Located in the relatively well-watered north, it receives an annual average of 31 centimeters of precipitation, almost all of which falls in July and in August. Ulaanbaatar has an average annual temperature of -2.9°C and a frost-free period extending on the average from mid-June to late August.
Mongolia's weather is characterized by extreme variability and short-term unpredictability in the summer, and the multiyear averages conceal wide variations in precipitation, dates of frosts, and occurrences of blizzards and spring dust storms. Such weather poses severe challenges to human and livestock survival. Official statistics list less than 1 percent of the country as arable, 8 to 10 percent as forest, and the rest as pasture or desert. Grain, mostly wheat, is grown in the valleys of the Selenge river system in the north, but yields fluctuate widely and unpredictably as a result of the amount and the timing of rain and the dates of killing frosts. Although winters are generally cold and clear, there are occasional blizzards that do not deposit much snow but cover the grasses with enough snow and ice to make grazing impossible, killing off tens of thousands of livestock. Such losses of livestock, which are an inevitable and, in a sense, normal consequence of the climate, can be devastating to herders in entire provinces, and most particularly to inexperienced herders.