Talk:Eastern Mongolia

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Discussion for: Eastern Mongolia • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Eastern Mongolia is a Growing Region: a named region that sits above Growing Areas and below the regional complex and gene pool. It covers the three eastern provinces of Mongolia, Khentii, Dornod and Sükhbaatar, and stops at the frontiers with Russia and China. The provinces on the Selenga, the Orkhon and the Tuul belong to Northern Mongolia.

Data verification

Check the main page for the sources behind each statement. Discuss the boundary, the units the region takes in, and the accessions and news items that belong to it here.

Discussion

Why the region is on the map

• The national programme against drugs of 2000 says that wild hemp grows fairly widely in Khalkh Gol sum of Dornod (with Orkhon, Selenge and Darkhan-Uul in the north, and Bulgan and Üyench sums in Khovd).
• Since 2000: a police criminology report on a survey of 2017 names Khentii and Dornod among the eight provinces where the range of wild hemp had been established and where it was destroyed in 2013–2017. Seed was collected at Dadal (Khentii) and Khalzan (Sükhbaatar) in 2018. A trade report of 2019 describes a licensed trial crop in Khentii.
• Herbarium sheets: thirteen gatherings from 1975 to 1991 in all three provinces, on river banks and valley floors (the Onon, the Nömrög, the Khalkhin Gol), in elm woodland, in mountain stream beds and on waste ground at Erdenetsagaan.
• A genetic study of 2025 groups plants from eastern Mongolia with plants from northern China, apart from those of western Mongolia.

The name

Eastern Mongolia describes where the region lies; it is not a source's own name for a cannabis tract. Dornod itself means "east", and the Russian labels of the Nömrög (1985), Khalkhin Gol (1987) and Onon (1990) sheets name the province "Eastern aimag" (Восточный аймак). The genetic study of 2025 writes "E Mongolia" for the same ground.

Growing status

The status is Active. The report on 2013–2017, the seed of 2018 and the trial crop of 2019 all fall after 2000. No source says that hemp has stopped growing in the region. Destruction campaigns are not read as an end to its growth.

How the border is drawn

• The border is a proxy built from three whole provinces, with OpenStreetMap relation numbers: Khentii (269885), Dornod (269886) and Sükhbaatar (269874).
• Dornod is named by the programme of 2000 (Khalkh Gol sum) and the report of 2017; Khentii by the report of 2017, the seed of 2018 and the trial crop of 2019. Sükhbaatar is named by no report: it is in the region on its herbarium sheets (Erdenetsagaan, 1985) and its seed (Khalzan, 2018).
• Bare ground and sparse vegetation (about 990 km²), snow and ice (about 20 km²) and open water (about 1,180 km²) make up less than 1 per cent of the three provinces, by ESA WorldCover (2021). Cut out and smoothed, they would change the shape by 0.2 per cent, so the province lines are kept.
• No ground in the region is above 4,000 m, so no altitude cut applies.
• The Northern Mongolia, Transbaikal and Northeast China lines are kept as they are: the region is cut off them, and the narrow strips between them and the province lines are taken into it, so the regions meet without overlapping. The infobox point (47.54, 113.49) is the centre of the shape.
• The border is not drawn from accession or news points.

Accessions

• Attached to the region: Zhurba 486 (Matad, 1975); Gubanov 9616, 9616a and 9573 (Erdenetsagaan, 1985); Gubanov 10186 (the Nömrög, 1985); Kamelin 675 (the Nömrög, 1987); Dariymaa 1804 (the Khalkhin Gol, 1987); Pistrick 182 (Matad, 1987); Dariymaa 643 (near Norovlin, 1989); Gubanov 291 (the Onon, 1990); Gubanov 43 (Kherlen-Tongo, 1991); IBB-MNG-KHE-0920180001 (seed from Dadal, 2018); IBB-MNG-SUK-0920180001 (seed from Khalzan, 2018).
• Gubanov 43: the catalogue's point for the sheet lies far to the south-west, outside the province; the accession is placed by its label, south of Delgerkhaan in Khentii.

Where the sources disagree

• The 1,497.8 hectares of 2013–2017 are counted with repeats and cover eight provinces, six of them wholly or partly in Northern Mongolia. National figures for other years (2016, 2018, 2022) are not broken down by province, and the page does not use them for the region.
• The three Erdenetsagaan gatherings of 1985 are of plants on waste ground and in a littered gully near a frontier post, at the edge of a settlement; the other sheets are from river banks, valley floors and mountain slopes.

Sources

• Law and government: the national programme against drugs (annex 1 to Government Resolution No. 34 of 2000), read on legalinfo.mn.
• Police: the police criminology report on a survey of 2017 (strategy.police.gov.mn).
• Press: HempToday (19 June 2019).
• Genetics: Balant et al. (2025).
• Herbarium sheets and seed: the Moscow Digital Herbarium records of MW0175111, MW0175112, MW0175113, MW0175114, MW0175115, MW0175116, MW0175119 and MW0175121; the GBIF records of the Gatersleben sheet GAT 0007976 and of the Barcelona vouchers BC-997788 and BC-997793.

Not used

• Observation records of the plant in Khentii, Dornod and Sükhbaatar on iNaturalist (2020–2026): they carry no habitat text.
• A weed survey of 2019 of the cropland of Sükhbaatar, Dornod and Khentii: its text does not name cannabis.
• No police or press report read names a place in Sükhbaatar.