page_title: Ordos Desert
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ordos Desert / History
caption_attribution_description: Bronze Man Ordos 3-1st Century BCE
context_page_description: The Ordos Desert is a desert/steppe region in Northwest China, administrated under the prefecture of Ordos City in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. It extends over an area of approximately 90,650 km², and comprises two sub-deserts: China's 7th largest desert, the Kubuqi Desert, in the north; and China's 8th largest desert, the Mu Us Desert, in the south. Wedged between the arable Hetao region to the north and the Loess Plateau to the south, the soil of the Ordos Desert is mostly a mixture of dry clay and sand, and as a result is poorly suited for agriculture.
context_section_description: Ancient names of the Ordos region are He-tau and - later - He-nan ("the country south of the river"). It was occupied by horse nomads for many centuries, and these were very often at war with China. In the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, it was occupied by the Xiongnu, but was almost depopulated during and after the Dungan revolt of 1869.
  This region was a desert during the Late Glacial Maximum. During the Holocene Climatic Optimum the monsoonal rains that reached the Loess Plateau in the modern era pushed the desert back to the Yellow River.  Since then, overgrazing at various periods and in the modern period, the lack of rainfall, has resulted in a return to desert conditions.  However, the most disastrous damage to the environment was caused by the political movements launched by Mao Zedong, namely the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, during which the thin line of fragile vegetation separating the Kubuqi and Maowusu deserts was destroyed.  Subsequent pressure of population and the increase in sheep/goats/cattle further damaged the already weakened local environment to the point of no return, and as a result, the two deserts finally linked up in the 1990s, forming the larger current day Ordos.
caption: Bronze statuette of a man, Ordos, 3-1st century BCE. British Museum.
exif: {}