Astronaut Thomas Pesquet captured from ISS Erenhot, Xilingol League, Inner Mongolia, China.
Erenhot is located in the Gobi Desert along the Sino-Mongolian border, across from the Mongolian town of Zamyn-Üüd. The elevation is 966m. Erenhot experiences a cold desert climate (Köppen BWk) with long, very dry, and bitter winters and short, hot summers. Monthly daily average temperatures range from -17.8C in January to 24.0C in July, with an annual mean of 4.61C. The city receives 3,232 hours (about 73% of the possible total) of bright sunshine per year, and clear, sunny, dry weather dominates year-round. The border town is a rail port city and the largest hub for cross border trade between Mongolia and China. When authorities opened the town up in 1992 to international trade, Erenhot underwent a transformation growing from 8,000 people then to an estimated 100,000 people including migrant workers. As a destination for wholesalers moving goods across the border, the city hosts a large trading market, International Trade City. Built in 2006 the mall is “a block-long, three-story wholesale market that houses 527 tenants who sell silk fabrics, rabbit and fox furs and other commodities.” The area around the town, especially a salt lake known to paleontologists as Iren Dabasu or Iren Nor to the east, is known for the discovery of a number of different dinosaurs.
The local scenery on the ground is as follows.
Reference: Thomas Pesquet’s Tweet
See earthview photo gallery: LiVEARTH