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The Ordos Desert is a desert lying on a plateau in the south of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The soil of the Ordos is a mixture of clay and sand and, as a result, is poorly suited for agriculture. It is approximately 90,650 km² in area.
The Ordos is the land encompassed by the great northward loop of the Yellow River.
The absolute height of the Ordos is 1 km, so that the desert forms an intermediate step in the descent to China from the Gobi Desert, separated from the latter by the mountain ranges lying on the north and east of the Yellow River.
The Great Wall of China borders the Ordos, separating it from the fertile loess land to the south and east.
The desert receives less than 25 cm of rain annually, and most of this is in the form of thunderstorms. The region has many salt lakes and intermittent streams. The alkaline soil allows for some nomadic Mongolian herders to raise sheep and goats, and there are large soda deposits that are heavily mined.
Small scale farming is practised at oases.
East of the desert of Ala-shan, and only separated from it by the Hwang-ho, is the desert of Ordos or Ho-tau, a level steppe, partly bordered by low hills.
Towards the south Ordos rises to an altitude of over 5000 feet, and in the west, along the right bank of the Hwang-ho, the Arbus or Arbiso Mountains, which overtop the steppe by some 3000 feet, serve to link the Ala-shan Mountains with the In-shan. The northern part of the great loop of the river is filled with the sands of Kuzupchi, a succession of dunes, 40 to 50 feet high. Amongst them in scattered patches grow the shrub Hedysarum and the trees Calligonum Tragopyrhzn and Pugionium cornutum. In some places these sand-dunes approach close to the great river, in others they are parted from it by a belt of sand, intermingled with clay, which terminates in a steep escarpment, 50 feet and in some localities 100 feet abovethe river. This belt is studded with little mounds (~ to fo feet high), mostly overgrown with wormwood (Artemisia campestris) and the Siberian pea-tree (Caragana); and here too grows one of the most characteristic plants of Ordos, the liquorice root (Glycyrrhiza uralensis). Eventually the sand-dunes cross over to the left bank of the Hwang-ho, and are threaded by the beds of dry watercourses, while the level spaces amongst them are studded with little mounds (3 to 6 feet high), on which grow stunted Nitraria schoberi and Zygophyllum.
The Ordod was the legendary land of origin of the Turks, by one account. It was occupied by horse nomads for many centuries, and these were very often at war with China.
Ordos, which was anciently known as Ho-nan ("the country south of the river") and still farther back in time as Ho-tau, was occupied by the Hiong-nu in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD., but was almost depopulated during and after the Dungan revolt of 1869. North of the big loop of the Hwang-ho, Ordos is separated from the central Gobi by a succession of mountain chains: the Kara-naryn-ula, the Sheitenula, and the In-shan Mountains, which link on to the south end of the Great Khingan Mountains. The In-shan Mountains, which stretch from 108° to 112° E, have a wild Alpine character and are distinguished from other mountains in the southeast of Mongolia by an abundance of both water and vegetation. In one of their constituent ranges, the bold Munni-ula, 70 miles long and nearly 20 miles wide, they attain elevations of 7500 to 8500 feet, and have steep flanks, slashed with rugged gorges and narrow glens. Forests begin on them at 5300 feet and wild flowers grow in great profusion and variety in summer, though with a striking lack of brilliancy in colouring. In this same border range there is also a much greater abundance and variety of animal life, especially amongst the avifauna.
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