A desert is a dry, barren landscape that receives very little rainfall or other forms of precipitations, most commonly represented by arid lands and grand plains with little or no vegetation and plants. When we think of deserts, we think of great fields of sand, huge dunes, sand sheets and sand seas covering as far as the eye can see – when in fact the sand covers only about 20% of world deserts. The rest – or perhaps the majority – consist of great plains where wind made sure there is nothing left but bedrock, pebbles and cobbles.
Top 10 biggest deserts
Contrary to popular belief Sahara Desert is only 3rd biggest desert, trailing behind Antarctic Desert and Arctic Desert. Here is a full list sorted by size in square kilometres, taken from Wikipedia:
- Antarctic Desert (Antarctica) 13,829,430 (km²)
- Arctic Desert (Arctic) 13,726,937 (km²)
- Sahara Desert (Africa) 9,100,000 (km²)
- Arabian Desert (Middle East) 2,330,000 (km²)
- Gobi Desert (Asia) 1,300,000 (km²)
- Kalahari Desert (Africa) 900,000 (km²)
- Patagonian Desert (South America) 670,000 (km²)
- Great Victoria Desert (Australia) 647,000 (km²)
- Syrian Desert (Middle East) 520,000 (km²)
- Great Basin Desert (North America) 492,000 (km²)
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