Deserts of the World

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What is a desert?

Deserts are large areas of land that receive less than 400 millimeters of rain every year, which makes them very dry with little vegetation. However, these ecosystems support unique plants and animals that are equipped to handle its harsh conditions.

Usually when we think of deserts, we think of a hot environment; but deserts can also be found in temperate and cold environments. Antarctica, in fact, is home to the largest and driest desert in the world.

Deserts can be found on all continents, with the exception of Europe:

The desert environment is harsh, so life in the desert is not easy by any means. The people who live in the desert must deal with extreme temperatures while living in a biome that presents very little vegetation and is rather inhospitable for cultivation.

• So, how do people survive?
• What do they eat?
• What are their homes like?

Let's travel to Africa, Asia, and South America to learn about life in the deserts found there. First stop: Africa.

The Sahara

This immense subtropical desert, found in northern Africa, is the third-largest desert in the world (after the Antarctica and Arctic deserts). It is the largest non-polar desert, covering an area of 9 million square kilometers (3.3 million square miles).

The word sahara comes from the Arabic word for desert, sahra. This is why it is called the Sahara and not the Sahara Desert.

The Sahara reaches across 11 countries and composes 31% of the African continent. Given its size, the Sahara is divided into three zones: Northern, Central, and Southern.

Flora and fauna vary depending on the zone but may include.

Life in the Sahara

People have lived in the Sahara area for thousands of years. Petroglyphs, like the one pictured below, trace life back to the last glacial period.

In fact, at that time, the area was much wetter than what we find today. The shifting of the earth's axis thousands of years ago led to the desertification of the area.

Today, the major tribes occupying the Sahara include Amazigh, Toubou, Nubian, Zaghawa, Kanuri, Hausa, Songhai, Beja, and Fula. Arabic dialects are the most common languages spoken in the Sahara.

People living in the desert usually live in tents that are easily transportable to available water sources. They may cultivate crops in irrigated land near an oasis to tend to flocks of sheep, goats, or camels.

Food in the desert is limited. People eat dates from the oasis palms and cheese made from sheep or goat milk as well as meat from those animals.

To protect themselves from the scorching hot sun and blowing sandstorms, people of the Sahara wear long, woolen robes called barracans. The usage of turbans and veils is also common.

The Tuareg people are nomadic sheep farmers who are often called "the blue people" because their turbans and shawls are colored with an indigo dye that sometimes rubs off on their skin.

^{Image by Garrondo, via Wikimedia Commons, is licensed under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.}

To gain a greater appreciation for life in the Sahara, watch Living in the desert, from New Atlantic TRIBES, which was filmed in the Mauritania Desert located within the Sahara:

Next, we're off to Southwestern Asia.

The Arabian Desert

Covering an area of 2.3 million square kilometers (900,000 square miles), the Arabian Desert occupies almost all of the Arabian Penninsula.

Unlike the deserts of North America, which are home to cacti, there are no cacti native to this area. However, you can find plants that yield resins used for incense such as frankincense and myrrh. Acacia trees and date palms can also be found.

Fauna in the Arabian desert includes sand cobras, vipers, gazelles, Arabian oryx, Nubian ibex, foxes, and cats as wells as rodents, various bird species, and insects.

Life in the Arabian Desert

Like the Sahara, the Arabian Desert has been inhabited for thousands of years. Today, the Bedouin, who are Arabic-speaking nomadic people, roam the area breeding camels and raising horses and sheep.

Western influence in the 20th century and the discovery of petroleum have led many of the Bedouin to settle semi-permanently in villages, towns, or urban areas.

Watch Experience The Life in the Desert of Oman | Curly Tales to see how the Bedouin live in this part of the Arabian Desert:

Time to head south of the equator to South America.

The Atacama Desert

As the driest desert on earth, the Atacama Desert stretches for 1,000 kilometers (600-700 miles) along the coast of Chile and Peru bordered by two mountain ranges, the Coastal Range to the west and Andes Mountains to the east.

This desert is so dry that some places have been without rain for four centuries. Unlike the intense heat of the Sahara and Arabian Desert, the Atacama Desert has a more Mediterranean climate, with temperatures varying depending on the elevation.

Life in the Atacama Desert

The indigenous people inhabiting the Atacama Desert and the altiplano region of northern Chile and Argentina and southern Bolivia are known as Lickan-Antay, Atacameño, or Kunza people.

Roots of the Atacameno people can be traced back to 500 AD. Today, we can see a mixture of cultures that also includes Aymara (from the north), Diaguita (from the south), and Spanish. The later reflects the occupation of the Atacama over the years by the Incan and Spanish conquistadors, and then Bolivia, Peru, and Chile beginning in the 19th century.

Traditional homes in the Atacama Desert were constructed of stone or volcanic rock.

Along the oases of this desert, some farming is done, including lemons, alfalfa, and potatoes. No camels are found here. Instead, the people of the Atacama Desert rely on llamas and alpacas.

Wild animals found in the Atacama include:

Watch TOUR OF THE ATACAMA DESERT, CHILE, from An Adventurous World, to see this desert up close:

When you're ready to review and expand upon what you've learned, move on to the Got It? section.