Buir Lake in Dornod

Buir Lake is situated in Khalkhgol soum of Dornod province, on the border between Mongolia and Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China. The lake is 40km long, 20km wide and has a surface area of 610 square km with an average depth of 6-10m. Khalkhyn Gol or Khalkha River is the main tributary of Buir Lake. This freshwater lake has an abundance of fish and the locals depend on it a lot. There are total of 36 species of fish in Buir Lake, namely common carp, pike, horse gudgeon, Amur ide, Mongolian culter, white culter, Amur catfish and Prussian carp. And there is a very rare species of astacidae called Leander Modestus Heller 1778 which can only be found in Buir Lake and no other place in the world. A couple of locations around the lake named respectively Khalkhyn Sum or Khalkha Monastery and Ulaan Khudag were disputed until 1960 and became Chinese territory after that year. Also, Buir Lake as a whole, used to be under Mongolian People’s Republic jurisdiction and there were no maritime boundary. But after a series of border negotiation, the northern part of Buir Lake has become a Chinese territory.