Mongolia is the sovereign country with the lowest population density in the world and its landscape reflects it: steppes that run out to the horizon, wooded taiga mountains in the north, glaciers in the Altai and, to the south, the Gobi, a desert of gravel, dunes and red cliffs famous for its beds of dinosaur eggs and skeletons. That fenceless immensity means mass ungulate migrations still exist: hundreds of thousands of Mongolian gazelles move across the eastern steppe following the rains, in one of the last great herbivore movements on the planet. Lake Hovsgol, in the north, holds a large share of the country's fresh water, and the western mountains support one of the most numerous snow leopard populations in the world.
Nature in Mongolia
National animal: Przewalski's horse, or takhi, the national animal and the only truly wild horse left in the world
Did you know?
In the Gobi survives the mazaalai, the only bear in the world adapted to living in a true desert. Fewer than forty animals remain, scattered across a handful of oases in an immense arid zone, and they feed mainly on roots, berries and rodents. It is probably the rarest bear on the planet, and the Mongolian government went so far as to declare an official year devoted to its conservation in an attempt to save it.
Biodiversity profile
Conservation
Przewalski's horse became extinct in the wild in the 1960s and was returned to the steppes of Hustai from 1992 with animals bred in European zoos; today there are wild herds in the country once more. Overgrazing from the growth of cashmere goat flocks is degrading the steppe.
Where and when to watch wildlife
Hustai at dawn and dusk for Przewalski's horses. The Altai in summer for argali and ibex and in winter for snow leopard. The eastern steppe in autumn for gazelles.
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