Visit Beautiful Mongolia
From remote deserts to frigid steppes
Culture
Young boys race horses at the annual Nadaam festival, a midsummer celebration of nomadic athleticism that also includes wrestling and archery competitions. Hundreds of children-both boys and girls-participate as jockeys in the horse racing event.
Cuisine
A woman prepares dozens of traditional meat dumplings called buuz, one of Mongolia's most popular dishes. In a land poorly suited to agriculture, meat and dairy make up a large portion of the diet.
Topography
Bactrian camels make their way across dunes in the Gobi desert, a vast expanse between southern Mongolia and northern China. The world's third largest "hot" desert, the Gobi is home to some of Earth's largest dunes, as well as unique wildlife like the endangered Gobi bear.
Wildlife
Here, a boy ropes a Bactrian camel as he and his family prepare to move on from their camp. The only truly wild camels that still exist, these two-humped herbivores are still found in the Gobi desert in Mongolia and China but number less than a thousand.