Giant dunes
Among the world's tallest.
Schwendi13 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Sjoerd van Oort — CC BY-SA 3.0 · 张骐 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Sjoerd van Oort — CC BY-SA 3.0 · M3th04 — CC0 · Sjoerd van Oort — CC BY-SA 3.0
A desert on the Alxa Plateau of Inner Mongolia and northern Gansu, covering 49,000 km², the third largest in China. It holds some of the tallest stationary dunes on Earth, some rising more than 500 m, and in July 2024 it was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List as «Towers of Sand and Lakes». Between the dunes lie more than a hundred spring-fed lakes, some fresh and some extremely salty, which gave the desert its Mongolian name, «mysterious lakes»; blue lakes among golden mountains of sand make a sight found in few places in the world. The Badan Lake area ticket costs CNY 70 and the full desert ticket CNY 160, from 8.30 am to 6 pm, per visitor guides. Getting there from Zhangye takes several hours by car, the deep desert is visited by four-wheel drive with a local operator, and you should carry water and protect yourself from the sun.
Among the world's tallest.
Amid the sand.
Deep in the desert.
Alxa Plateau, Inner Mongolia, north-east of Zhangye
Trips usually start from Zhangye with several hours by car, then the Badan Lake area is visited on a CNY 70 ticket or the whole desert on a CNY 160 ticket, going deep by four-wheel drive with a local operator, per visitor guides.