Desert, Central Asia.
One of the great desert and semidesert regions of the world, the Gobi stretches across Central Asia over large areas of Mongolia and China. It occupies an arc of land 1,000 mi (1,609 km) long and 300600 mi (5001,000 km) wide, with an estimated area of 500,000 sq mi (1,300,000 sq km). Contrary to the image often associated with a desert, much of the Gobi is not sandy but covered with bare rock.