The Gobi Desert is spread across which of the following countries ?
1. Mongolia
2. China
3. Russia
4. Kazakhstan
Select the correct answer from the code given below :

Question

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Correct — A, Only 1 and 2. The Gobi is a two-country desert: it occupies the southern third of Mongolia and reaches across the border into northern China, where its Chinese portion lies mainly in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and spills into Gansu and Ningxia. It covers roughly 1.3 million square kilometres in all. Its northern limit stops well short of Russia — the Altai mountains and the Mongolian steppe belt intervene — and it comes nowhere near Kazakhstan, which lies far to the west beyond the Altai and the Dzungarian basin. So statements 1 and 2 are correct and statements 3 and 4 are not, which is option (a).

Why the other options are wrong — (b) It adds Russia, a natural guess because Russia shares a long border with Mongolia. But the Gobi lies in the SOUTH of Mongolia, along the Chinese frontier, while Russia adjoins Mongolia in the north. Between the desert and the Russian border lie the Altai and Khangai mountains and a broad belt of Mongolian steppe and forest-steppe, so the Gobi never reaches Russian territory.  (c) It adds Kazakhstan, presumably because Kazakhstan is a large, dry Central Asian state. But it is separated from the Gobi by the Altai and Tian Shan ranges and the Dzungarian basin, and its own arid lands — such as the Betpak-Dala — are distinct deserts, not part of the Gobi.  (d) It restricts the Gobi to Mongolia. Mongolia does hold the desert's northern half, and the name is Mongolian, but a very large share of the Gobi lies inside China, chiefly in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Leaving China out understates the desert by roughly half.

Concept: The Gobi is a cold, mid-latitude desert of the East Asian interior, stretching in an arc across southern Mongolia and northern China. Its aridity has two causes working together. First it lies in a deep rain shadow: the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau stand between it and the Indian Ocean and strip the monsoon winds of their moisture before they can travel that far north. Second it is about as far from any ocean as land on Earth gets, so continentality reinforces the dryness and produces a violent temperature range. That is why the Gobi behaves nothing like the Sahara — winter temperatures plunge far below freezing and snow and frost are ordinary events.

State PCS 2025 Q70 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q70 — Geography PYQ with Answer