戈壁滩 (Gēbìtān): the Gobi Desert

戈壁 itself is a Mongolian loanword (говь, 'desert / waterless place'). Adding 滩 (tān, 'flat expanse / shoal') gives the spread-out feel of the landscape. The Gobi straddles northern China (Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Xinjiang) and southern Mongolia. Unlike the Sahara, it's mostly stony / gravel desert, not sand dunes.

history

Site of China's nuclear weapons program — 罗布泊 (Lóubùpō, Lop Nur) in the eastern Tarim Basin, on the Gobi's western edge, was where China conducted its atomic and hydrogen bomb tests starting in 1964.