ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Not all Deserts are Sandy

Not all Deserts are Sandy

Deserts are landscapes that receive little precipitation. They can be hot and sandy like the Sahara, or cold and ice-covered like Antarctica.

Grades

5 - 8

Subjects

Earth Science, Climatology, Geography, Physical Geography

Image

Two North Pole trekkers ski across frozen ocean in the Arctic.

Dan Westergren / National Geographic
Two North Pole trekkers ski across frozen ocean in the Arctic.

Sandy. Dry. Hot. These are the words typically used to describe the desert. But the endless, windswept dunes that come to mind only make up a small percentage of the deserts on the planet. A desert is actually just a place that has very little precipitation.

Subtropical deserts like the Sahara are what people generally imagine when they think about the desert. The Sahara has rocky plateaus as well as sand dunes. During the summer, the temperature in the Sahara can reach over 50°C (122°F), making it one of the hottest deserts on Earth. Despite these temperatures, the Sahara is home to olive trees, antelope, jerboa, scorpions, jackals, and hyenas. It is even home to some people, with several major cities located there, including Egypt’s Cairo, Libya’s Tripoli, and Mali’s Timbuktu. At 9.4 million square kilometers (3.6 million square miles), the Sahara is also the largest hot desert on Earth.

The largest desert on Earth is Antarctica, which covers 14.2 million square kilometers (5.5 million square miles). It is also the coldest desert on Earth, even colder than the planet’s other polar desert, the Arctic. Composed of mostly ice flats, Antarctica has reached temperatures as low as -89°C (-128.2°F). The ice that covers the area is on average 2.45 kilometers (1.5 miles) thick. There is almost no vegetation in Antarctica, so the animals that live there are mostly carnivores, such as penguins, albatrosses, whales, and seals. Antarctica’s waters are abundant with sea life, including fish, krill, and sea sponges.

How can both the Sahara and Antarctica be deserts? The reason is that they both see little precipitation during the course of a year, typically around 25 centimeters (10 inches), or less. This makes them both difficult places for plants and animals to live. Both deserts have fossil evidence suggesting that this was not always true. Based on fossil evidence, the Sahara and Antarctica appear to have been the homes of many plants and animals in the past.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Director
Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society
Author
National Geographic Society
Production Managers
Gina Borgia, National Geographic Society
Jeanna Sullivan, National Geographic Society
Program Specialists
Sarah Appleton, National Geographic Society, National Geographic Society
Margot Willis, National Geographic Society
other
Last Updated

September 25, 2024

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

Media

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources