To the south and west of Dzungaria, and separated from it by the Tian Shan mountains, is an area about twice the size of Dzungaria, the oval Tarim Basin. To the north of Dzungaria are mountains and the Siberian forest. It often behaved as a westward extension of Mongolia and connected Mongolia to the Kazakh Steppe. Dzungaria has good grassland around the edges and a central desert.

Dzungaria is bounded by the Tarbagatai Mountains on the west and the Mongolian Altai Mountains on the east, neither of which is a significant barrier. The east-west Tian Shan Mountains divide the steppe into Dzungaria in the north and the Tarim Basin to the south. On the east side of the former Sino-Soviet border, mountains extend north almost to the forest zone with only limited grassland in Dzungaria. It has been home to nomadic empires and many large tribal confederations and ancient states throughout history, such as the Xiongnu, Scythia, Cimmeria, Sarmatia, Hunnic Empire, Sogdia, Xianbei, Mongol Empire and Göktürk Khaganate. The Steppe route is a predecessor not only of the Silk Road which developed during antiquity and the Middle Ages, but also of the Eurasian Land Bridge in the modern era.

Since the Paleolithic age, the Steppe Route has connected Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, East Asia and South Asia economically, politically and culturally through overland trade routes. It stretches through Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, western Russia, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Manchuria, with one major exclave, the Pannonian steppe, located mostly in Hungary. The Eurasian Steppe, also simply called the Great Steppe or the steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. Steppe ecoregion of grasslands, savannas, and shrublands Eurasian steppe belt (turquoise)

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