Badain Jaran Desert – Towers of Sand and Lakes

Location and Values: The Badain Jaran Desert is located in a temperate region of northwestern China.  It has some of the tallest sand dunes in the world and Earth’s highest concentration of small desert lakes nestled between the dunes. This combination creates a spectacular, vast desert landscape of exceptional natural beauty.  At the same time, its geological diversity is also outstanding with a variety of aeolian features – such as wind-blown shifting sands and ‘singing dunes’ – and desert geomorphology including wind-eroded landforms, oases, ripple effects and unusually stable mega-dunes. Development of the Badain Jaran Desert has been strongly influenced by climate change and the continuing tectonic uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. This unusual combination of desert-forming processes is continuing, so the site offers insights into these long-term desert forming processes. The size and integrity of the site is important in understanding its ongoing evolution.

Conservation Status and Prospects.  According to IUCN’s Conservation Outlook Assessment (2025) the conservation status of the Badain Jaran Desert world heritage site is ‘good’. Overall, the site is subject to a low level of threat from grazing of domestic livestock and increased tourism, although neither of these factors impacts the site’s values significantly. The management authority is engaging with local livestock herders to encourage participation in the protection and management of the site as well as providing education, and helping with the promotion of traditional cultures. In the long term, climate change may affect the recharge of groundwater and maintenance of the lakes, but this is not yet apparent.

LINKS:

Google Earth

UNESCO Official Website

IUCN Conservation Outlook