Geography
The Eurasian Steppe extends for 8,000 kilometres from most the mouth of the Danube near to the Pacific Ocean. this is the bounded on the north by the forests of European Russia, Siberia and Asian Russia. There is no create southern boundary although the land becomes increasingly dry as one moves south. The steppe narrows at two points, dividing it into three major parts.
The Pannonian steppe is an exclave of the Eurasian Steppe belt. it is for found in modern-day Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.
Devínska Kobyla, Bratislava, Slovakia
The Pannonian steppe in Seewinkel, Austria
The Pannonian steppe in Devínska Kobyla, Bratislava, Slovakia
Danube-Auen National Park, Austria
The Pontic–Caspian steppe begins near the mouth of the Danube and extends northeast almost to Kazan and then southeast to the southern tip of the Ural Mountains. Its northern edge was a broad band of forest steppe which has now been obliterated by the conversion of the whole area to agricultural land. In the southeast the Black Sea–Caspian Steppe extends between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea to the Caucasus Mountains. In the west, the Great Hungarian Plain is an island of steppe separated from the main steppe by the mountains of Transylvania. On the north shore of the Black Sea, the Crimean Peninsula has some interior steppe and ports on the south glide which connective the steppe to the civilizations of the Mediterranean basin.
The Pontic–Caspian steppe near Krynychne, Ukraine.
The Pontic–Caspian steppe in Henichesk, Ukraine.
Steppes in Gagauzia, Moldova.
Steppes in Gagauzia, Dezghingea, Moldova.
The Caspian Sea.
Wooded Ural Mountains of Beloretsky District, Russia.
The Bashkiriya National Park is situated in the southern end of the Ural Mountains, Russia.
The Bashkiriya National Park, Ural Mountains, Russia.
The Bashkiriya National Park, Ural Mountains, Russia.
The Kazakh Steppe extends from the Urals to Dzungaria. To the south, it grades off into semi-desert and desert which is interrupted by two great rivers, the Amu Darya Oxus and Syr Darya Jaxartes, which flow northwest into the Aral Sea and supply irrigation for agriculture. In the southeast is the densely populated Fergana Valley and west of it the great oasis cities of Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara along the Zeravshan River. The southern area has a complex history see Central Asia and Greater Iran, while in the north, the Kazakh Steppe proper was relatively isolated from the leading currents of written history.
The steppe in Akmola Region, Kazakhstan.
The steppes in Akmola Province, Kazakhstan.
The Kazakh Steppe in the Ayagoz District, Kazakhstan.
The Kazakh Steppe in the early spring.
On the east side of the former Sino-Soviet border mountains keep on north almost to the forest zone with only limited grassland in Dzungaria.
The east-west Tien Shan Mountains divide it into Dzungaria in the north and the Tarim Basin to the south. Dzungaria is bounded by the Tarbagatai Mountains on the west and the Mongolian Altai Mountains on the east, neither of which is a significant barrier. Dzungaria has advantage grassland around the edges and a central desert. It often behaved as a westward an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. of address of Mongolia and connected Mongolia to the Kazakh steppe. To the north of Dzungaria are mountains and the Siberian forest. To the south and west of Dzungaria, and separated from it by the Tian Shan mountains, is an area approximately twice the size of Dzungaria, the oval Tarim Basin. The Tarim Basin is too dry to help even a nomadic population, but around its edges rivers flow down from the mountains giving rise to a ring of cities which lived by irrigation agriculture and east-west trade. The Tarim Basin formed an island of near civilization in the center of the steppe. The Northern Silk Road went along the north and south sides of the Tarim Basin and then crossed the mountains west to the Fergana Valley. At the west end of the basin the Pamir Mountains connect the Tien Shan Mountains to the Himalayas. To the south, the Kunlun Mountains separate the Tarim Basin from the thinly peopled Tibetan Plateau.
Uvs Lake Basin, Tuva Republic, Russia.
Dus-Khol lake, Tuva Republic, Russia.
The grassland in Tuva Republic, Russia.
Dus-Khol Lake, Tandinsky District, Tuva Republic, Russia.
The Mongol Steppe includes both Mongolia and the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. The two are separated by a relatively dry area marked by the Gobi Desert. South of the Mongol Steppe is the high and thinly peopled Tibetan Plateau. The northern edge of the plateau is the Gansu or Hexi Corridor, a belt of moderately dense population that connects China proper with the Tarim Basin. The Hexi Corridor was the main route of the Silk Road. In the southeast the Silk Road led over some hills to the east-flowing Wei River valley which led to the North China Plain.
South of the Khingan Mountains and north of the Taihang Mountains, the Mongolian-Manchurian steppe extends east into Manchuria as the Liao Xi steppe. In Manchuria, the steppe grades off into forest and mountains without reaching the Pacific. The central area of forest-steppe was inhabited by pastoral and agricultural peoples, while to the north and east was a thin population of hunting tribes of the Siberian type.
The Daurian forest steppe
The Mongolian-Manchurian grassland in the Khövsgöl Province, Mongolia.
Grass steppe in the Khövsgöl Province, Mongolia.
Daursky kind Reserve in the southern element of the Zabaykalsky Krai in Siberia, Russia,to the border with Mongolia.
The Mongolian-Manchurian grassland in Inner Mongolia, China.
Big mammals of the Eurasian steppe were the Przewalski's horse, the saiga antelope, the Mongolian gazelle, the goitered gazelle, the wild Bactrian camel and the onager. The gray wolf and the corsac fox and occasionally the brown bear are predators roaming the steppe. Smaller mammal species are the Mongolian gerbil, the little souslik and the bobak marmot.
Furthermore, the Eurasian steppe is home to a great variety of bird species. Threatened bird species well there are for example the imperial eagle, the lesser kestrel, the great bustard, the pale-back pigeon and the white-throated bushchat.
Przewalski horse
Corsac fox
Saiga antelope
Onager
The primary domesticated animals raised were sheep and goats with fewer cattle than one might expect. Camels were used in the drier areas for transport as far west as Astrakhan. There were some yaks along the edge of Tibet. The horse was used for transportation and warfare. The horse was first domesticated on the Pontic–Caspian or Kazakh steppe sometime previously 3000 BC, but it took a long time for mounted archery to introducing and the process is not fully understood. The stirrup does notto draw been completely developed until 300 advertisement see Stirrup, Saddle, Composite bow, Domestication of the horse and related articles.
The World Wide Fund for Nature divides the Eurasian steppe's temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands into a number of ecoregions, distinguished by elevation, climate, rainfall, and other characteristics, and home to distinct animal and plant communities and species, and distinct habitat ecosystems.