Khovd

Khovd stands at the foot of the Altai Mountains, near the Buyant River and the great expanse of Khar-Us Lake. Its cold desert climate brings long, dry winters and short, warm summers, with little rain outside the summer months. The town grew in the country between the mountains and the lakes of western Mongolia.

Galdan Boshugtu Khan of the Dzungars established Khovd in 1685 on the Khovd River. Captives from Central Asia brought cultivation skills, and gardens were developed around the settlement. After the destruction of the Dzungar Khanate in the 1750s, the Qing authorities moved the town to the Buyant River. It became an administrative centre in a region inhabited by several Mongol communities, linking the lands of the Altai with the basin to the east.