Yurtas in Mongolia-2. Gobi

Mongolian deserts and steppes are the most sparsely populated places on Earth. Wikipedia lists countries by population density and Mongolia yields only to Western Sahara, Falkland Islands and Greenland.

That's why meeting a human being in Mongolia can make you real happy. Even in Gobi desert, there's plenty of people living in yurtas and ranching cattle. I'm not sure what they all eat in the desert but hopefully there are some snacks.



This place in Google Maps

This family has a pretty large herd and you can see a cattle-pen. All such yurtas settlements (there are more than a dozen of them in this area and you can recognize them by dark spots in Google Earth that are actually sheep's dung as they say in Google Earth forum) are interconnected with roads - indeed, that's just gravel.

If you look at this region, you can see a town called Tugrug at South-West. Tugrug is Mongolian national currency and it also happens to be a town's name. There are several yurtas nearby the town and even in the town, next to stone buildings. This fact proves that many people are so adjusted to rural and nomadic lifestyle that they won't leave their yurtas even in cities.

Town of Tugrug, Mongolia (in Google Maps):

Driving in Mongolia

Mongolia again. This time it's winter and someone is have real fun driving on the ice of Marrat Lake. With roads being really awful in Mongolia, this should be a true relief, to drive on flat endless ice.





There are some more paths - just look for them along the shore.

View in Google Maps

Yurtas in Mongolia

My first post is about my wonderland - Mongolia. In this picture you see 2 yurtas (those white round things) and some construction nearby at a shore of Marrat Lake. Looks like there's a herd pasturing at the right.

There are many isolated yurtas in the area. Distance between them is from 0.5 to 2 kilometers.



See in Google Maps

Yurtas in Google Earth