Cashmere is the underdown shed annually by goats living in the high, dry plateaus surrounding the Gobi Desert, which stretch from Northern China into Mongolia. These goats have a coarse outer hair that repels the weather. Under that outer coat lies a much finer fiber, cashmere, which insulates these animals from the bitter cold.

World Production

World Production of cashmere is about 8,000 tonnes annually of hair-in product from which the worlds’ cashmere processors extract around 3,600 tonnes of down. About half of this is produced in China and the Chinese Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia. Around 850 tonnes of down are produced annually by Iran and Afghanistan and 700 tonnes by the Republic of Mongolia. Australia and New Zealand between them produced just on 45 tonnes of down.