Gobi Desert - European Exploration Up To 1911

European Exploration Up To 1911

The Gobi had a long history of human habitation, mostly by nomadic peoples. By the early 20th century the region was under the nominal control of Manchu-China, and inhabited mostly by Mongols, Uyghurs, and Kazakhs. The Gobi desert as a whole was only very imperfectly known to outsiders, information being confined to the observations which individual travellers had made from their respective itineraries across the desert. Amongst the European explorers who contributed to early 20th century understanding of the Gobi, the most important were:

• Jean-François Gerbillon (1688–1698)
• Eberhard Isbrand Ides (1692–1694)
• Lorenz Lange (1727–1728 and 1736)
• Fuss and Alexander G. von Bunge (1830–1831)
• Hermann Fritsche (1868–1873)
• Pavlinov and Z.L. Matusovski (1870)
• Ney Elias (1872–1873)
• Nikolai Przhevalsky (1870–1872 and 1876–1877)
• Zosnovsky (1875)
• Mikhail V. Pevtsov (1878)
• Grigory Potanin (1877 and 1884–1886)
• Count Béla Széchenyi and Lajos Lóczy (1879–1880)
• The brothers G. E. Grumm-Grshimailo (1889–1890) and ? Grumm-Grshimailo.
• Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov (1893–1894 and 1899–1900)
• Vsevolod I. Roborovsky (1894)
• Vladimir Obruchev (1894–1896)
• Karl Josef Futterer and Dr. Holderer (1896)
• Charles-Etienne Bonin (1896 and 1899)
• Sven Hedin (1897 and 1900–1901)
• K. Bogdanovich (1898)
• Ladyghin (1899–1900) and Katsnakov (1899–1900)