Biggest Deserts in the World

Top-20 of the World’s Greatest Deserts, with their respective location and assigned desert type. Antarctica Desert is the largest desert in the world.

List of the World’s Largest Deserts

Among the Largest Deserts in the World , we find the polar deserts of the Antarctic and Arctic to occupy the first two positions of the largest deserts in area , leaving the third place in this list for the Sahara Desert. The latter, perhaps, will be the best known of all for being the most talked about and for being what people associate with a desert. However, there are not only hot deserts, there are also polar or icy deserts. The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world, covering much of North Africa. In addition to being the largest desert in the world , the Antarctic Desert is the largest icy desert by area. The Arctic Desert is the listed desert that spans the most continents, passing through America, Europe and Asia. All area values ​​related to the largest deserts in the world are approximate values ​​and the closest to the real dimension of the mentioned deserts.

10th Desert of the Great Basin

The Great Basin Desert is the largest desert in the United States by surface, being a cold-type desert, bordered by the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. It has an area of ​​approximately 492,000 km ² .

9th Syrian Desert

Located in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula between the Euphrates and Orontes Rivers, this sub-tropical desert has more than 500,000 km ² of surface. Syria’s capital, Damascus, is in one of the oases of this hot desert.

8º Patagonian Desert

The largest desert on the American continent and Argentina, in particular, is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the Andes Mountains. This cold desert is over 600,000 km ² in area.

7th Deserto de Kalahari

One of the largest African deserts is located in the south of the continent, with Angola being one of the countries where this sub-tropical desert is present. The Kalahari Desert has an area of ​​900,000 km ² of surface.

6th Gobi Desert

The Gobi Desert is located in Northern China and Southern Mongolia, with an area of ​​1,295,000 km ² . It is the northernmost sandy desert in the world .

5th Arabian Desert

The largest desert in Asia covers an area of ​​approximately 2,330,000 km ² and extends across Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait and Yemen.

4th Australian Desert

The Australian Desert is the largest desert in Oceania with a total area of ​​2,330,000 km ² . It encompasses a set of deserts such as the Gibson Desert, Simpson Desert or the Great Victoria Desert.

3rd Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert is the largest desert in Africa and the largest hot desert in area , with more than 9,000,000 km ² in area. The location of the Sahara Desert is throughout North Africa, with the exception of Sudan, the Nile Valley, the Atlas Mountains and the coastal region to the Mediterranean Sea.

2nd Arctic Desert

The Arctic Desert has more than 13,700,000 km ² of surface and is present in Alaska, Finland, Canada, Norway, Russia, Greenland, Iceland and Sweden.

1st Antarctic Desert

The Antarctic Desert is the largest desert in the world and occupies the entire continent of the same name. The total area of ​​the largest desert in the world is 13,829,430 km ² .

List of the 20 Largest Deserts in the World