Ordos Desert - History

History

Ancient names of the Ordos region are He-tau and - later - He-nan ("the country south of the river"). By one account, it was the legendary land of origin of the Turks. It was occupied by horse nomads for many centuries, and these were very often at war with China. In the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, 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. 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.