Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau and the Loess Plateau, bordering Mongolia (Govi-Altai Province) to the northwest, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia to the north, Shaanxi to the east, Sichuan to the south, and Xinjiang to the west. The Yellow River passes through the southern part of the province. The province contains the geographical centre of China, marked by the Center of the Country Monument at . Part of the Gobi Desert is located in Gansu, as well as small parts of the Badain Jaran Desert and the Tengger Desert. The Yellow River gets most of its water from Gansu, flowing straight
Gobi bear Bears have very little genetic diversity, and is among the lowest ever observed in any species of Brown bear. Levels of genetic diversity similar to the Gobi Bear have only been reported in a small population of Brown bears in the Pyrenees Mountains on the border of Spain and France. Based on morphology, the Gobi brown bear has sometimes historically been classified as being of the same subspecies as the Tibetan blue bear. However, recent phylogenetic analysis has shown the Gobi bear to instead represent a relict population of the Himalayan brown bear. There are only 22 Gobi bears left