Top 10 largest deserts in the world – the sand giants of our planet

Thousands of kilometers of sand, burning heat, cacti – this is how we imagine the desert. However, in reality, everything is somewhat different: there can be hundreds of thousands of kilometers of sand, and instead of heat, there can be cold.

Want to know the name of the largest desert in the world? We bring to your attention a list of 10 large desert places on Earth. Some record holders will surprise you.

10 US Western Desert (North America), 492 km²

big pool (as this desert is called) covers most of Nevada, as well as parts of Utah, Oregon, Idaho and California. Typically, its eastern border is Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, while its western edge is formed by the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains, which provide a rain shadow over much of the Great Basin, preventing many Pacific storms from entering the region.

The northern and southern boundaries, depending on how they are defined, range from the Snake River Plain in the north to the Mojave Desert in the south. Surprisingly, there are forests at high altitudes that include the longest-lived living organisms on Earth, the Great Basin pines, which can live for 4900 years.

Humans have long been part of the Great Basin ecosystem. Evidence of Native American habitation has been found for a long time and is over 10000 years old. These people lived in small groups, cultivating corn and squash, and also hunting and gathering pine nuts and crickets.

European explorers and trappers crossed the Great Basin in the 1700s, but settlers did not begin arriving until the early 1800s. Mining towns flourished and disappeared from the 1870s to the 1930s as gold, silver and copper were sought.

9. Syrian Desert (Eurasia), 520 km²

A vast tract of mostly barren land covering parts of four countries: Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

Few plants and animals of the Syrian desert are of the type that can withstand the subtropical climate. Nomads raise sheep and camels and move seasonally from one region to another across political borders in search of pastures.

В Syrian empty phosphates, oil and butane gas have been discovered, and a modern road and rail network makes exploiting the desert much easier than before.

8. Great Victoria Desert (Australia), 647 km²

Great Victoria Desert forms one of nine different landscapes in the Alinitjara-Vilurara Natural Resource Management Region. It is the largest desert in Australia, spanning over 700 kilometers.

This untouched desert includes red sand dunes, rocky plains and dry salt lakes. There are no lakes or other surface water, but even in this landscape there are Aboriginal communities in Oak Valley, Watarru and Valalkara who are used to surviving in such conditions.

7. Patagonian Desert (South America), 673 km²

Once covered in dense forest, the desert of Patagonia has become a harsh and windy landscape, covering 673 square kilometers in southern Argentina and Chile.

It is characterized by plains, grassy steppes and rocky foothills. Vegetation in the Patagonian desert is rare, with the exception of a few species of grasses and shrubs that have adapted to the harsh environment through evolution.

6. Kalahari Desert (Africa), 900 km²

Although Namibia is better known for being the home of the Namib Desert, it should be remembered that much of eastern and southern Namibia is covered by another desert − Kalahari.

The Kalahari is an unusual desert because it rains too much, but it’s actually a fossil desert. So don’t expect to find high sand dunes: the terrain is quite different.

the Kalahari Desert, or Kgalagadi, as it is called in Botswana, extends to 7 countries – Botswana, Zambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In Namibia, it is called “desert” mainly because its porous sandy soils cannot hold surface water, but in some areas the annual rainfall can reach 250 mm, which provides a lush grass cover in good years.

As the Namibian Kalahari Desert is covered with trees, rivers and fossil streams, a vast array of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, plants and insects thrive here.

5. Gobi Desert (Eurasia), 1 km²

Gobi is a large desert region in northern China and southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and grasslands, and the steppes of Mongolia in the north, the Tibetan Plateau in the southwest, and the North China Plain in the southwest.

The word Gobi in Mongolian means “desert”. It consists of several distinct ecological and geographic regions based on changes in climate and topography. The desert is best known as part of the great Mongol Empire, where there were several important cities along the Silk Road.

4. Desert of the Arabian Peninsula (Eurasia), 2 km²

Sprawling across the Arabian Peninsula, the imposing beauty of vast plateaus, rolling sand dunes and towering mountain ranges Arabian desert, it can amaze with a mysterious charm.

The Arabian Desert is buzzing with life and activity: often overlooked by tourists, this vast piece of land stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and from Oman to Jordan promises its own remarkable collection of wildlife and dramatic scenery that rivals the best of African safaris.

With an ecosystem uniquely adapted to extreme conditions, one can witness some of nature’s most stunning creatures found only in the hidden corners of the Arabian Desert.

From rare sightings of sand cats in Oman and Nubian goat duels in Jordan, to Egyptian vultures in Saudi Arabia.

3. Arctic Desert (Arctic), 2 km²

It’s a cold desert because it gets very little rainfall – about the same as the Sahara – but it’s so cold here that snow covers the ground and forms ice.

Most heavy snowfall occurs at temperatures just below freezing (-10 °C or higher), as warmer air can hold more water vapor. The very cold arctic air is not able to hold much moisture, so it doesn’t rain or snow often, which is what makes this place. Arctic wilderness.

2. Sahara Desert (Africa), 9 km²

Sahara Desert extends over most of North Africa and covers more than 9 square kilometers (about the same as in the United States).

In fact, the Sahara covers about 30% of the entire African continent. It is the hottest place in the world with summer temperatures often exceeding 57 degrees Celsius.

Rainfall is between 0 and 25 millimeters a year, and it is very windy, with hurricanes blowing sand up to 1000 meters and constantly moving sand dunes.

1. Antarctic Desert (Antarctica), 13 km²

The words “polar” and “desert” may seem contradictory, but that’s only because most of us associate the latter with sun-drenched, sandy landscapes.

However, desert actually describes any desolate piece of land that is waterless and devoid of vegetation—and by that definition, the Sahara in Africa is even better suited for settlement than polar deserts of Antarctica.

They cover a huge area and cover an area larger than the Sahara, Arabia, Gobi and Kalahari combined, and its aptly named Dry Valleys have not seen rain for at least 2 million years.