Uvs Lake Basin

Uvs Lake Basin
Uvs Lake Basin Show map of Mongolia Uvs Lake Basin Show map of Russia
Coordinates: 50°10′N 93°50′E / 50.167°N 93.833°E / 50.167; 93.833
Countries	Russia and Mongolia
States	Tuva (Russia)
Provinces	Uvs, Zavkhan and Khövsgöl in Mongolia
Districts	Mongun-Tayginsky, Ovyursky, Tes-Khemsky and Erzinsky in Tuva
Area
• Total	70,000 km2 (30,000 sq mi)
• Protected	10,688 km2 (4,127 sq mi)
Ubsunorskaya Kotlovina (Russia)
Area	2,843 km2 (1,098 sq mi)
Designation	Biosphere Reserve
Designated	1997
Uvs Nuur Basin (Mongolia)
Area	7,717 km2 (2,980 sq mi)
Designation	Biosphere Reserve
Designated	1997
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Location	Russia and Mongolia
Criteria	Natural: (ix)(x)
Reference	769rev
Inscription	2003 (27th Session)
Area	8,980.635 km2 (3,467.443 sq mi)
Buffer zone	1,707.90 km2 (659.42 sq mi)
Ramsar Wetland
Official name	Lake Uvs and its surrounding wetlands
Designated	2004
Country	Mongolia
Area	5,850 km2 (2,260 sq mi)

Uvs Lake Basin (also Uvs Nuur Basin or Ubs Nuur Basin; Mongolian: Увс нуурын хотгор, romanized: Uws nuuriin hotgor) is an endorheic basin located on the territorial border of Mongolia and Tuva, a republic of the Russian Federation. The basin is part of the Central Asian Internal Drainage Basin and is named after Uvs Lake (Uvs Nuur, Ubsu Nur), a large saline lake situated in the western part of its drainage basin, and is one of the last remnants of the mammoth steppes. Uvs Lake is a shallow lake with an area of 3,350 km² (1,290 sq mi). Its entire basin, which includes several smaller lakes, is 70,000 km² (27,000 sq mi).^[1]

Uvs Lake Basin may also refer to Ubsunur Hollow (Russian: Убсунурская котловина, Ubsunorskaya Kotlovina), which is the western part of the drainage basin, or to over 10,000 km² (3,900 sq mi) of protected areas covering the lake and its surroundings. The hollow forms the northern part of the Great Lakes Depression, which has a surface of over 100,000 km² (39,000 sq mi). The hollow, and most of the drainage basin, are situated in the Khövsgöl, Zavkhan and Uvs Provinces of north-western Mongolia, and the Mongun-Tayginsky, Ovyursky, Tes-Khemsky and Erzinsky Districts of southern Tuva.

The basin is part of a combination of raised lands and hollows located throughout the Tannu-Ola and Altai mountainous regions. Here, the world's most northern desert meets the Northern Hemisphere's most southern tundra zone. An area of 10,560 km² (4,080 sq mi), around three quarters of which lies in Mongolia, was designated Biosphere Reserve in 1997, and a partly overlapping zone of around the same size was designated UNESCO World Heritage in 2003. The Mongolian part of the lake and its immediate surroundings were further adopted as Ramsar wetland in 2004.

Ubsunur Hollow covers the western part of the Uvs Nuur drainage basin