The Eastern Gobi desert steppe is the easternmost stretch of the Gobi, spanning the Inner Mongolian Plateau across northern China (Inner Mongolia) and into Mongolia, including the Yin Mountains to the southwest. Its vegetation is a steppe of drought-tolerant shrubs and low grasses, dominated by Caragana peashrubs and other legumes alongside needlegrasses (Stipa), fescue (Festuca), and gray sagebrush, with willows and elms taking hold in rockier ground. The climate is arid and strongly continental, with sparse, mostly summer rainfall and severe winters that classify it as a cold desert. Large mammals such as the Mongolian wild ass and saiga antelope persist here, and protected areas like Gobi Gurvan Saixan National Park anchor conservation, though the critically endangered Baer's pochard is the region's flagship species. For cold-climate gardeners, hardy native genera like Caragana, willow, and elm are well suited to dry, exposed sites.

At a glance

About the deserts & xeric shrublands biome

Arid and semi-arid lands where low, erratic rainfall and high evaporation limit vegetation to drought-adapted shrubs, succulents, and sparse grasses. Day-to-night temperature swings are large, and life is finely tuned to water scarcity.

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's CHELSA-derived current zone range, with the CHELSA mid-century warming delta applied for the projection. Plants whose stated range falls outside both the current and projected zone end up dropped; the rest land in one of the three buckets below.

Collections for this ecoregion

Curated multi-plant collections whose members all fit this ecoregion's zone range — no won't-grow members smuggled in. Overall fit class shown per collection is the weakest link across its members.

Related ecoregions