Top 10 Largest Deserts in the World for General Awareness

GREAT BASIN DESERT 

This cold winter desert is the largest in the United States. It lies between the Rocky Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevada range to the west, and the Sonoran and Mojave deserts to the south. 

SYRIAN DESERT 

The Syrian Desert, also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert and steppe covering 500,000 square kilometers of the Middle  

PATAGONIAN DESERT 

This cold winter desert runs through Argentina but extends into parts of Chile. It is a relatively windy desert with the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Andes Mountains to the west. 

GREAT VICTORIA DESERT 

This subtropical desert is the largest in Australia. It extends from the Gawler Ranges of South Australia to the Eastern Goldfields region in Western Australia and experiences about 15 to 20 thunderstorms a year. 

KALAHARI DESERT 

This subtropical savanna in southern Africa extends from Angola, Botswana, and Namibia into South Africa. It is covered with red sand. 

GOBI DESERT 

This cold winter desert runs from the northwestern and northern regions of China down to the south of Mongolia. It doesn’t get much rain since the Himalayas block the rain clouds from the Indian Ocean, resulting in a rocky topography rather than a sandy one. 

ARABIAN DESERT 

This subtropical desert in western Asia covers territories in Yemen, the Persian Gulf, Oman, Jordan, and Iraq. The largest continuous body of sand in the world–referred to as the “Empty Quarter”–lies at its center. It gets very little rain. 

ARCTIC DESERT 

This cold winter desert reaches into Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Finland. The icy region is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. 

ANTARCTICA 

The most extreme–driest, windiest, coldest, and with the highest average elevation–continent on earth is located at the South Pole. About 98% of the fifth largest continent on the planet is covered by ice. 

SAHARA DESERT 

The largest ‘hot desert’ on earth occupies most of North Africa, reaching into territories of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. 

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