Gobi Desert, Mongolia

This scene is an original illustration set in Gobi Desert, Mongolia. It lies in mid-latitudes, where the climate is cold desert — arid, with freezing winters.

A file of camels crosses a stony plain, each with two humps and a shaggy coat thick around the neck. The desert floor is gravel and pebble rather than sand, low bare ridges stand behind, and the late autumn light is cold and clear with long shadows.

Why does a Bactrian camel have two humps?

Two humps and a heavy winter coat mark the cold-desert species: the problem here is not shedding heat but surviving winter, and the coat is shed in sheets each spring. A gravel floor rather than dunes means the wind has removed the fines and left a pavement. Cold, high and arid together describe a continental desert far from any ocean.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.