Download Top Ten Largest Deserts

Top Ten
Largest Deserts
Sahara
•The Sahara covers huge parts of
Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali,
Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western
Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia.
•The Sahara is almost as large as the
continental United States, and is larger
than Australia.
•The Sahara’s history goes back as much
as 3 million years.
•Some of the sand dunes can reach 180
meters (600 ft) in height.
•Its name comes from the Tamajaq
Tuareg language word Tenere, which
means the desert, translated into the
Arabic it gave Sahara
•The Sahara divides the continent into
North and Sub-Saharan Africa.
•The Sahara has one of the harshest climates in the world. The wind often causes the
sand to form sand storms and dust devils
•People lived on the edge of the desert thousands of years ago since, immediately after
the last ice age, the Sahara was a much wetter place than it is today.
•Arabic is the most widely spoken language in the Sahara, but Berber people are also
found there as well as the Beja who live in the Red Sea Hills of southeastern Egypt.
•A number of mines develop to exploit the desert's natural resources: oil and natural gas
in Algeria and Libya and large deposits of phosphates in Morocco and Western Sahara.
Fennec Fox
Dromedary camel
Deathstalker
Leiurus quinquestriatus
Berber children in mid-Sahara nomad
Arabian
•The Arabian Desert stretches from Yemen
to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan
and Iraq.
•It occupies most of the Arabian
Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000
square kilometers (900,000 mi²).
•At its center is the Rub'al-Khali, one of the
largest continuous bodies of sand in the
world.
•Gazelles, oryx, sand cats, and spiny-tailed
lizards are just some of the desert-adapted
species that survive in this extreme
environment, which features everything
from red dunes to deadly quicksand.
•The climate is extremely dry, and
temperatures oscillate between extreme
heat and seasonal nighttime freezes.
•This ecoregion holds little biodiversity,
although a few endemic plants grow here.
•Many species, such as the striped hyena, jackal and honey badger have become
extinct in this area due to hunting, human encroachment and habitat destruction.
Other species have been successfully re-introduced, such as the endangered white
oryx and the sand gazelle, and are protected at a number of reserves.
•The major ethnicities are: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmeni, Assyrians
•The significant languages are: Arabic, Kurdish, Aramaic, Armenian
Turkmen man with camel
Honey Badger
Traditional Arabian Bedouin
Striped Hyena
Gobi
•The Gobi (Mongolian: Говь, Govi or
Gov', "gravel-covered plain") is the
largest desert region in Asia.
•It covers parts of northern and
northwestern China, and of
southern Mongolia.
•The desert basins of the Gobi are
bounded by the Altai Mountains and
the grasslands and steppes of
Mongolia on the north, by the Tibetan
Plateau to the southwest, and by the
North China Plain to the southeast.
•The Gobi is made up of several
distinct ecological and geographic
regions based on variations in climate
and topography.
•This desert is the fourth largest in the
world.
•The Gobi is most notable in history as part of the great Mongol Empire, and as the
location of several important cities along the Silk Road.
•The Gobi is a rain shadow desert formed by the Himalaya range blocking rain-carrying
clouds from reaching the Gobi.
•Gobi is a cold desert, and it is not uncommon to see frost and even snow on its dunes.
Bactrian Camels
Herders wife
and her son,
southern Gobi
desert, Mongolia
Mongolian woman collecting firewood
Marbled polecat
Patagonian
•The Patagonian Desert is the largest
desert in the Americas and is the 5th in
the world by area, occupying 260,000
square miles (673,000 km²).
•It is located primarily in Argentina with
small parts in Chile
•It is bounded by the Andes, to its west,
and the Atlantic Ocean to its east.
•It is a large cold winter desert
•It has about seven months of summer
and five months of winter.
•Frost is not uncommon in the desert
but snow is rare – too dry.
•The burrowing owl, lesser rhea,
guanaco, tuco-tuco, mara, pygmy
armadillo, Patagonian weasel, puma,
Patagonian gray fox, desert iguana,
Jumping Cow Spider, and various
species of eagle and hawk are a few of
the variety of animals living in the
region.
•The desert cave paintings indicating various indigenous peoples in its past.
•The area is sparsely populated today and those that do live here survive mainly by the
raising of livestock such as sheep and goats.
Pink fairy armadillo (pygmy armadillo)
Patagonian Mara
Tuco-tuco
Guanaco
Rub’al Khali
•The Rub' al Khali (Arabic: ‫)الربع الخالي‬,
which translates as Empty Quarter in
English, is one of the largest sand
deserts in the world, encompassing most
of the southern third of the Arabian
Peninsula, including southern Saudi
Arabia, and areas of Oman, the United
Arab Emirates and Yemen.
•The desert covers some 650,000
square kilometers (250,000 square
miles)
•Even the Bedouins only skirt the edges
of the desert.
•With summer temperatures up to nearly
55 degrees Celsius (131 F) at noon, and
dunes taller than the Eiffel Tower — over
330 meters (1000 ft) — the desert may
be the most foreboding environment on
Earth
•Geologically, the Empty Quarter is one
of the most oil-rich places in the world.
•The expedition also led to the discovery of 31 new plant species and plant varieties, as
well as 24 species of birds that inhabit the desert, which fascinated scientists as to how
they have survived under the harsh conditions. These findings led the geologists to
nickname the area Rub' al-Ghali, or the Valuable Quarter.
White Oryx
(Oryx leucoryx)
Arabian Wolf
(Canis lupus arabs)
Ibex
(Capra ibex nubiana )
Great
Victoria
•The Great Victoria Desert is a
barren, arid, and sparsely
populated desert ecoregion in
southern AustraliaI
•It consists of many small
sandhills, grasslands and salt
lakes.
•It is over 700 kilometres (435
miles) wide, covers 424,400 sq
kl (163,900 sq mi) .
•Due to the aridity and dryness
of the desert, almost no farming
activity is carried out there
•It is inhabited by many different
groups of Indigenous
Australians, including the
Kogara and the Mirning.
•In 1875, British explorer Ernest Giles became the first European to cross the desert.
•He named the desert after the then-reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria.
Anangu
man in Inma
(ceremony)
decoration
Thorny Devil (Moloch horridus)
Anangu Elders
Anangu women
Night Parrot, Kakapo
(Geopsittacus occidentalis )
Kalahari
•The Kalahari Desert is a large arid to
semi-arid sandy area in southern
Kgalagadi Africa extending 900,000 km²
(362,500 sq. mi.),
•Kalahari covers much of Botswana and
parts of Namibia and South Africa.
•Kalahari has huge tracts of excellent
grazing after good rains.
•The Kalahari supports some animals and
plants because most of it is not true desert.
• There are small amounts of rainfall and
the summer temperature is very high.
• The only permanent river, the Okavango,
flows into a delta in the northwest, forming
marshes that are rich in wildlife.
•Ancient dry riverbeds—called
omuramba—traverse the Central Northern
reaches of the Kalahari and provide
standing pools of water during the rainy
season.
•Previously havens for wild animals from elephant to giraffe, and for predators such as
lion and cheetah, the riverbeds are now mostly grazing spots, though leopard or cheetah
can still be found.
•The San people or Bushmen have lived in the Kalahari for 20,000 years as huntergatherers.
Meerkat
Bushmen, or
Sanpeople
Lion
Giraffe
Great
Basin
•The Great Basin Desert, the largest U. S.
desert that covers part of four states
(Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah) and
approximately 210,000 square miles
•It is bordered by the Sierra Nevada Range on the
west and the Rocky Mountains on the east, the
Columbia Plateau to the north and the Mojave and
Sonoran deserts to the south.
•This is a cool or "cold desert" due to its more northern
latitude, as well as higher elevations (at least 3,000 feet,
but more commonly from 4,000 to 6,500 feet). In winter it
gets snow.
•Whirlwinds of dust often form over the land.
These are called "dust devils".
•The region is one of high valleys, basins,
numerous mountain ranges, many rivers, and
salt flats (a large, level area of flat land containing
salt deposits)
•Great Basin Desert is mostly covered by shrubs;
there are only occasional yuccas and very few cactus.
•A wide variety of animals
lives there: bighorn sheep, kit fox, coyote, skunk, blacktailed jackrabbit, ground
squirrels, kangaroo rat and many species of mice. Bird
species are very diverse in desert oases.
•4 Native American cultures have lived in the area during the last 10,000 years or so:
Nevares Spring People (7000 bce), Mesquite Flat People (3000 bce), Saratoga Spring
People (2000 years ago), nomadic Timbisha (1000 years ago). Several families of
Timbisha (Shoshone tribe) still live at Furnace Creek
•The California Gold Rush brought the first Caucasians.
Salt Lake City
Bighorn Sheep
Shoshonean Indians
Golden Eagle
Tarantula spider
Chihuahuan
•The Chihuahuan Desert is located at the
U.S.-Mexico border.
•In U.S. it covers parts of New Mexico,
Texas, Arizona. In Mexico: Chihuahua, most
of Coahuila, Durango, Zacatecas and Nuevo
León.
•It is 140,000 square miles (~362,600 km²).
•It is the third largest desert within the Western
Hemisphere and second largest in North America,
after the Great Basin Desert.
•This desert is unique, as it has been sheltered
from the influence of other arid regions such as the
Sonora Desert by the large mountain ranges of the
Sierra Madres. This isolation has allowed the
evolution of many endemic species; most
notable is the high number of endemic plants.
However, this ecoregion also sustains some of the
last remaining populations of Mexican prairie
dogs, wild American bison and pronghorn
antelope.
•According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Chihuahuan Desert may be the
most biologically diverse desert in the world, whether measured on species
richness or endemism, although the region has been heavily degraded over time. Many
native species have been replaced with creosote shrubs. The Mexican wolf, once
abundant, has been extirpated. The main cause of degradation has been grazing.
Agave cactus or prism cactus
American bison
Mexican prairie dogs
Pronghorn antelope
Thar
•The Thar Desert (Hindi: थार
मरुस्थल), also known as the
Great Indian Desert, is a
large, arid region in the
northwestern part of the
Indian subcontinent.
•Thar covers an area of more
than 200,000 sq.
km.,(140,000 sq. mi.)
•It lies mostly in the Indian
state of Rajasthan, and
extends into the southern
portion of Haryana and
Punjab states and into
northern Gujarat state.
•It covers parts of Pakistan
•The main occupation of the people in
•Due to the diversified habitat, the vegetation anddesert
animalislife
in this arid
region
is very
agriculture
and
animal
rich. About 23 species of lizard and 25 species ofhusbandry.
snakes are found here and several of
them are endemic to the region.
•Rajasthan desert festivals are celebrated every year, during winters. Dressed in
brilliantly hued costumes, the people of the desert dance and sing haunting ballads of
valor, romance and tragedy. The fair has snake charmers, puppeteers, acrobats and folk
performers. Camels, of course, play a stellar role in this festival, where the rich and
colorful folk culture of Rajasthan can be seen.
Desert cat
Chinkara Jabeer Gazelle
Short-toed Eagle