Altai Tavan Bogd

Altai Tavan Bogd National Park was established in 1996 at the western tip of Mongolia, in the province of Bayan-Ölgii, where the borders of Mongolia, Russia and China meet, and protects some 6,362 km².

Its core is the Tavan Bogd massif, the five holy ones, which culminates in Khüiten, at 4,374 metres the highest mountain in Mongolia. Several glaciers descend from its slopes, among them the Potanin, the largest in the country, some twenty kilometres long. Around it stretch glacial valleys, high-altitude lakes such as Khoton and Khurgan, and mountain steppe.

The park has archaeological heritage of the first order: the valleys of Tsagaan Salaa and Baga Oigor preserve thousands of petroglyphs carved over twelve thousand years, from the late Palaeolithic to the Iron Age, documenting the transition from hunting societies to nomadic herding. UNESCO inscribed them in 2011 as the Petroglyphic Complexes of the Mongolian Altai, a cultural property. The region is inhabited by Kazakhs who maintain hunting with golden eagles, a tradition handed down over generations, and its wildlife includes snow leopard, Altai argali and Siberian ibex.