A journey of 5,000 km begins with a single steppe

With over 250 sunny days a year, Mongolia is known by many as the "Land of the Eternal Blue Sky.” Under that sky, though, Mongolia is anything but constant – it is vast and diverse, with stunningly beautiful landscapes from steppes and deserts to icy lakes and gushing rivers.

Last fall we bolted a Street View camera onto a four wheel drive pickup truck to begin capturing 360-imagery. So far, it’s made its way across more than 5,000 km of Mongolia’s rugged roads...well, not always “roads.”

Sometimes, nowhere near a road.

And there were times when we ditched the truck entirely. Deep in Mongolia’s wild expanses, Ariuntuul, or “Ari”, our Mongolian Trekker operator, strapped the 18kg Street View Trekker onto her back.

Let’s peer over Ari’s shoulder — and the hood of our 4x4 — to take a quick glimpse around Mongolia, shall we?

Winter is coming
First stop: Khuvsgul Lake, the second largest freshwater lake in Asia. We captured this in the middle of winter, when the entire lake freezes over so hard that sleds and trucks can trundle across it.

As you can see if you head back towards the shore, this frozen lake is a favorite destination for locals and tourists alike, with ornate ice sculptures and local artisans setting up shop on the ice.

Trials and tributaries
Next up: one of the many (many) rivers our 4x4 had to cross on its 5,000 km journey - this time, a small tributary of the Yeruu River in Selenge province.

Sometimes there weren’t even makeshift bridges.

Sand as far as the eye can see
Southern Mongolia is home to Asia’s largest desert, the Gobi, which overlaps with northern China. These vast, sandy plains gave birth to the mighty Mongol empire under Genghis Khan in the 13th century.

And as you can see, wild horses are still being tamed on these endless expanses.

The cold never bothered me anyway
On the opposite side of the country, closer to Mongolia’s border with Russia, the “roads” look a little different in the winter. Here’s our truck venturing through the farmlands just outside of Mongolia’s third largest city, Darkhan.


Luckily, we had four wheel drive.

The round rooftops of Ulaanbaatar
The ger (pronounced “gear”) is an iconic Mongolian structure, home to the nomadic herders who have packed up and moved around the Mongolian plains for thousands of years. Now, many families have started to move to the outskirts of the rapidly growing capital city, Ulaanbaatar, and are setting up their gers there.


Have a nice journey!
Although adventurers usually spend weeks exploring the hidden treasures of Mongolia, we can now take you on a whirlwind tour in just a few clicks—which we fully expect will start you planning a real-world adventure of your own. Until then...


Posted by Cynthia Wei, Program Manager, Google Street View

P.S. If you want even more Mongolia, check out this post about 200+ Mongolian cultural artifacts we’ve just added on the Google Cultural Institute.