North Eastern Mongolia, Tuv Province

Tourists trying out a horse ride.

Though "Tuv Province" literally means "Central Province", the province is actually located in the north eastern part of Mongolia. Rather off the centre as such. (It was named"Central", probably, because Ulaanbaatar is located in this province)

Landscape: View from Manzshir Temple, Tuv Province

Photo images of north eastern part of Mongolia. Summer 2005. (Click on the image to enlarge)

This country is over 1.5 million square kilometers. And only 2.7 million people live there, nearly half of whom actually residing in the capital city Ulaanbaatar (1.1 million) now. (Forget about those outdated statistics found in the English language, including even the UN statistics on Mongolia. Carelessly neglected data.) This makes the enormous land look quite uninhabited.

Generally, Mongolia's land is divided into 5-6 natural zones (depending on the classification purpose). For example:

1) Desert (South)
2) Semi-desert (South)
3) Forest-steppe (Central, Western, Eastern parts of Mongolia) (Known as, e.g. rolling steppes or grassland)
4) Taiga (Smaller part in North-West)
5) (Altai) Mountainous area (Smaller part in West)

The images here are only from the north-eastern part of Mongolia, as a matter of fact, not far from Ulaanbaatar. These were taken by Finnish friends traveling in Mongolia.