Badain Jaran Desert
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How it came to be
The Badain Jaran Desert lies on the Alashan Plateau of Inner Mongolia in north-western China. It is the third-largest desert in China, and its Mongolian name means mysterious lakes. Three of China's sandy regions meet here.
Some 144 lakes lie between the dunes, the highest concentration of interdunal lakes on Earth. Most are saline, and differences in salinity and microbial life give them different colours. One stabilised dune rises 460 m above its surroundings, the tallest of its kind in the world, and the desert holds the largest expanse of singing sands, which sound when dry sand moves in the wind.
In 1868 a Tibetan Buddhist temple was built beside one of the lakes in the middle of the desert. A few herding families still move through the area with camels and goats. The desert was inscribed in 2024 over 726,291 ha.
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