Yurt
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Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!Yurt, also spelled yurta, Mongol ger, tentlike Central Asian nomad’s dwelling, erected on wooden poles and covered with skin, felt, or handwoven textiles in bright colours. The interior is simply furnished with brightly coloured rugs (red often predominating) decorated with geometric or stylized animal patterns. The knotted pile rug, first known from a nomad burial at the foot of the Altai Mountains (5th–3rd century bc), probably developed as a fur substitute to provide warmth and sleeping comfort in the yurt.
Other items found inside a typical yurt include saddlebags, drinking gourds, and tools for spinning and weaving. The yurt is pitched wherever the nomad finds good pasture for the herds and is carried from place to place on horseback or on a small wagon.
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construction: Primitive building: the Stone Age…goats’ hair tent, the Mongolian yurt with its collapsible wooden frame and felt coverings, and the American Indian tepee with its multiple pole supports and double membrane are more refined and elegant descendants of the crude shelters of the early hunter-gatherers.… -
Mongolia: Daily life and social customsTheger (yurt) is always pitched with its door to the south. Inside, the north is the place of honour, where images of the Buddha and family photographs are kept. The west side of theger is considered the man’s domain, where his saddle and tack… -
Mongolia: Rural patterns…countryside is the
ger (yurt), the traditional Mongolian dwelling still used widely by herders, which provides warmth in winter and coolness in summer. It is a circular wooden lattice-walled structure with felt insulation and a broad conical roof resting on poles, the whole covered with white canvas. It is…
