Antarctica is the world’s largest desert, with an area of 14 million km2 and very low precipitation. The Sahara and Arabian deserts are hot and dry, covering 9.1 million km2 and 2.33 million km2 respectively. The largest desert of all time was the interior of Pangea, and the largest desert in the solar system is probably the surface of Venus.
The largest desert in the world is inland Antarctica. This has an area of approximately 14,000,000 km2 (5,400,000 sq mi). Precipitation in the Antarctic interior is extremely low, as low as 20 millimeters (0.8 in) per year. This is partly because it is so cold that all liquid water quickly freezes solid and joins the ice.
The vast majority of liquid lakes in Antarctica are more than a mile below the surface. Some of these lakes are actually lower than freezing temperatures, but remain liquid due to the large pressure above. Antarctica has only two major rivers, the Alph River and the Onyx River. The latter is the longest in Antarctica, with a length of only 30 km (18 mi). By comparison, the Nile River is 6.650 km (4.135 mi) long. Antarctica is not only the largest desert in the world, but also one of the oldest large deserts, formed 23 million years ago.
But when most people think desert, they think heat. The next two largest deserts in the world – the Sahara Desert in Africa and the Arabian Desert in the Middle East – are both very dry and very hot. The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert on Earth, and the hottest sustained temperature ever recorded on Earth was in the Sahara Desert, in September 1922 in Libya. The temperature was 58°C (136°F). Few large animals, camels and humans being two of them, can survive such temperatures and dryness.
The Sahara Desert and the Arabian Desert have areas of 9,100,000 km2 (3,320,000 sq mi) and 2,330,000 km2 (900,000 sq mi), respectively. The Sahara Desert covers ten countries (Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia), while the Arabian Desert covers another ten (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar , United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen). The largest concentration of proven oil reserves in the world is found in the Arabian Desert.
Although today’s deserts look large, the planet’s largest desert of all time was the interior of Pangea, a supercontinent that existed from about 300 – 150 million years ago. The desert may have been up to seven times larger than today’s Antarctic desert. Most of the continent’s interior would have been uninhabitable for many forms of life.
The largest desert in the solar system is probably the surface of Venus. The atmosphere of Venus has only 002% water vapor. Earth has about 1% of them. The surface of Venus has temperatures above 460 °C (860 °F), hotter than most broilers.
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