People often boast about vacations to beautiful beaches or peaceful, picturesque mountains. But you have probably never heard someone speak with enthusiasm about a recent trip to the desert. Deserts, however, offer some of the globe’s most dramatic landscapes and natural beauty.
Some flawed perceptions
Many think that deserts are places that receive very little rainfall, produce few plants and are known for their high heat and abundant amount of sand.
Yet the world’s two largest deserts might surprise you!
The biggest
The Antarctic Desert extends 13,829,430 square kilometers over the South Pole and is the coldest, driest and windiest place on Earth. Most of Antarctica is covered in ice, yet the region is considered a desert because of the small amount of precipitation that it receives. Rainfall averages from 50 to 200 millimeters annually.
The second largest, the Arctic Desert can be found at the top of the globe in the northernmost region of the world. Its area includes land in Canada, the United States, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia.
Both land areas are known as “polar deserts” or “cold deserts.” |