Top 10 Most Beautiful Deserts

The beau­ty of a par­tic­u­lar place is not lim­it­ed to the num­ber of tourists that vis­it it. Despite hav­ing a harsh envi­ron­ment, the deserts have a unique beau­ty that can­not be found any­where else in the world. This com­pi­la­tion presents a list of the 10 most beau­ti­ful deserts in the world.

Sonoran Desert

Sono­ra is an amaz­ing desert that cov­ers about 300 thou­sand square kilo­me­ters in South­west­ern Ari­zona, South­east­ern Cal­i­for­nia and North­west­ern Mex­i­co. This desert receives more rain­fall than any oth­er on Earth, with 25 to 35 cm of rain per year. The Sono­ran Desert is also known for its rich bio­di­ver­si­ty with over 60 mam­mal species, 20 amphib­ians, 100 rep­tiles, 20 fish species, 350 bird species and 2,000 plant species. It is the hottest and sec­ond largest desert in North Amer­i­ca. Sum­mer tem­per­a­tures in Sono­ra aver­age 40 degrees Cel­sius, but in some parts it reach­es up to 48 degrees. Sono­ra is home to two — Coffe and Catali­na. Some desert plant species are com­plete­ly endem­ic and are not found any­where else in the world. For exam­ple, the giant cereus is the tallest (up to 20 meters) cac­tus tree on Earth. Also worth not­ing is the beau­ti­ful Ari­zona iron tree, which has been liv­ing for over 1,500 years.

Desert Simpson

The Simp­son Desert is the fourth largest desert in Aus­tralia and one of the most beau­ti­ful deserts in the world. It occu­pies an area of ​​143 thou­sand square kilo­me­ters. More than 1100 sand dunes are the most promi­nent attrac­tion of this desert. They are locat­ed in par­al­lel rows, and the length of some exceeds 200 km. In addi­tion to quan­ti­ty and length, the dunes of the Simp­son Desert are also famous for their vibrant col­ors, includ­ing red, orange, pink, and white. This arid region receives only 150 mm of pre­cip­i­ta­tion per year. The aver­age sum­mer tem­per­a­ture in the Simp­son Desert is 39 degrees Cel­sius, but can some­times reach the 50-degree mark.

Arabian desert

Occu­py­ing almost the entire Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la, the desert is the sec­ond largest in the world. It stretched across a vast area of ​​hun­dreds of thou­sands of square kilo­me­ters. Most of this desert is locat­ed in Sau­di Ara­bia. The Ara­bi­an Desert is bor­dered to the north by the Syr­i­an Desert, to the south by the Ara­bi­an Sea, to the west by the Red Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Oman. The cli­mate of the Ara­bi­an Desert is char­ac­ter­ized by hot days and frosty nights. In sum­mer, tem­per­a­tures can reach 55 degrees Cel­sius. The largest part of the Ara­bi­an Desert is called Rub al-Khali — it is the largest area of ​​con­tin­u­ous sand in the world. This part cov­ers an area of ​​650 thou­sand square kilo­me­ters. The Ara­bi­an Desert includes many moun­tain ranges. The high­est among them is the moun­tain Nabi Shuaib in Yemen with a height of 3666 meters. Despite the harsh cli­mate, the Ara­bi­an Desert is an excel­lent source of nat­ur­al resources, includ­ing nat­ur­al gas, oil, phos­phates and sul­fur.

Negev desert

Cov­er­ing 12,000 square kilo­me­ters, the Negev Desert occu­pies more than half of Israel’s land mass. Instead of a lot of dunes, you will see canyons and deep val­leys in this desert. The most impor­tant geo­log­i­cal for­ma­tion of the Negev desert is the unique Makht­esh ero­sion crater. It is sur­round­ed by breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful cliffs. In one of the canyons of the Negev is the Ein Avdat Nation­al Park with a stun­ning oasis where springs with clear cool water beat. This place is very pop­u­lar with fans of walk­ing tours along numer­ous routes.

Mojave Desert

The Mojave Desert is the small­est desert in North Amer­i­ca at 35,000 square kilo­me­ters. Locat­ed in South­east­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Mojave also cov­ers parts of Neva­da and Ari­zona. It is bound­ed by the cold Great Basin Desert to the north and the Sono­ran Desert to the south. Among the out­stand­ing attrac­tions of the Mojave Desert are the dunes of Kel­so. The stun­ning dune sys­tem is up to 200 meters high in places. Cre­at­ed by the south­east wind, the unique dunes have an attrac­tive gold­en col­or. Plant life here is not rich and includes only a few vari­eties. Among them are blue Palo Verde, desert sen­na and tree-like yuc­ca, which grows nowhere else in the world. It can grow up to 15 meters in height and live for over 150 years.

Atacama Desert

Ata­ca­ma is the dri­est desert in the world. Locat­ed in North­ern Chile, the desert stretch­es over 65242.806 square kilo­me­ters. Ata­ca­ma is an extreme­ly dry place. Some parts of this desert have nev­er seen rain. The aver­age rain­fall in the desert is only 1 mil­lime­ter per year. The Ata­ca­ma is 50 times dri­er than Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Death Val­ley.

The Andes and the Chilean coastal range on both sides block the access of mois­ture to the desert. As a result, the soil of the Ata­ca­ma is almost life­less and sim­i­lar in this respect to the soil from Mars. There­fore, the land­scapes of the Ata­ca­ma are called oth­er­world­ly by many. The high alti­tude, clear skies, and lack of back­ground light make Ata­ca­ma one of the best places for stargaz­ing. For this pur­pose, there are three inter­na­tion­al obser­va­to­ries in the desert.

Sahara Desert

With an area of ​​8.6 mil­lion sq. km. The Sahara desert is the largest hot desert in the world. In terms of size, the Sahara is the third largest desert in the world after the Arc­tic and Antarc­tic deserts, cov­er­ing most of North Africa. The Sahara is bound­ed by the Mediter­ranean Sea to the north, the Niger Val­ley to the south, the Red Sea to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Even with such a harsh envi­ron­ment, the Sahara has an incom­pa­ra­ble beau­ty. The dry val­leys, moun­tains, salt fields, moun­tains, dunes, plains and oases of the Sahara are unique and breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful. Almost 25% of the Sahara desert is cov­ered with dunes. In some places the dunes reach a height of 200 meters.

Gobi Desert

Cov­er­ing south­ern Mon­go­lia and north­west­ern Chi­na, the Gobi Desert cov­ers 777,000 square kilo­me­ters and is the largest desert in Asia. It is grow­ing every year, cov­er­ing 1,390 square miles in the fields of south­ern Chi­na. The land­scape of the Gobi desert is char­ac­ter­ized main­ly by bare rocks and few dunes.

The Gobi desert is divid­ed into five main eco­log­i­cal regions — the east­ern steppe, the Alashani plateau, the val­ley of the Gobi lakes, the Dzun­gar­i­an basin and the Tien Shan range. These eco-regions have dif­fer­ent geo­log­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics, includ­ing moun­tains, salt marsh­es, rocky land­scapes and dunes. The Gobi Desert also has out­stand­ing his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance, as the ancient Silk Road passed through its ter­ri­to­ry. A series of Bud­dhist tem­ples of the Mogao Caves are locat­ed in the south­ern part of the Gobi. It is a UNESCO World Her­itage Site with thou­sands of years of Bud­dhist art.

Namib Desert

The Namib is a beau­ti­ful coastal desert in Namib­ia. It stretch­es almost 2,000 kilo­me­ters along the Atlantic coast and cov­ers an area of ​​50,000 square kilo­me­ters. With an esti­mat­ed age of 55 mil­lion years, the Namib is one of the old­est deserts in the world. With tow­er­ing dunes, moun­tains, plains and unique ani­mal and plant species, the Namib Desert is unlike any oth­er place on earth. It also has some of the high­est sand dunes in the world, some of which come right up to the Atlantic Ocean.

One of the most rec­og­niz­able parts of the Namib Desert is the dead val­ley of Dead­vlei. This is a clay plateau with the remains of dead trees, sur­round­ed by the high­est dunes. Dead­vlei Plateau is a pho­tog­ra­pher’s par­adise and one of the most unusu­al places in the world.

Antarctica

Antarc­ti­ca is con­sid­ered a desert because it receives the low­est rain­fall com­pa­ra­ble to the dri­est places on Earth. With a total area of ​​5.4 mil­lion square miles, Antarc­ti­ca is con­sid­ered the largest desert in the world. It is also the cold­est, windi­est and dri­est place on earth. Despite all these facts, Antarc­ti­ca is one of the most beau­ti­ful loca­tions in the world.

Inter­est­ing­ly, the high­est tem­per­a­ture ever record­ed in Antarc­ti­ca was 14.5 degrees Cel­sius. The low­est tem­per­a­ture ever record­ed on Earth was also in Antarc­ti­ca, at 94.7 degrees Cel­sius below zero. It is also the windi­est place on Earth, where winds can reach speeds of 320 kilo­me­ters per hour. Almost 98% of Antarc­ti­ca is cov­ered with ice. The Antarc­tic Ice Sheet is the largest sol­id mass of ice on earth. This frozen con­ti­nent holds 70% of the world’s fresh water. Despite the harsh envi­ron­ment, some amaz­ing ani­mals and birds thrive here, includ­ing pen­guins, seals, whales, dol­phins, alba­tross and petrels.