The document provides information about several deserts around the world, including their locations, sizes, climates, and key features. The Sonoran Desert spans parts of the US and Mexico, with the US portion located mainly in southern Arizona. It is the hottest desert in North America and uniquely hosts saguaro cacti. Other deserts mentioned include the Lut Desert in Iran, Taklamakan Desert in China, Sahara Desert in Africa, Mojave Desert across southwest US, Arabian Desert across western Asia, and Thar Desert across parts of India and Pakistan.

2. The Sonoran Desert spans approximately one hundred thousand square miles split fairly evenly between the US and Mexico.
Most of the US portion of the desert is located in the southern portion of Arizona (as shown in the diagram).
Fascinating Sonoran Desert Facts:
The Sonoran Desert is the hottest in North America.
It is the only place in the world where Saguaro Cacti grow.
There are more than 2000 species of plants living in the desert.
The city of Phoenix is entirely surrounded by the Sonoran Desert.
The Sonoran Desert’s unique location allows it to have two rainy
seasons: one in winter and one in summer.
It is home to the Giant Saguaro
The Organ Pipe Cactus lives here
Rivers run through it, like the mighty Colorado

3. ● Lut literally means plain, bare, waterless, and grassless.
● Lut is a desert in the southeast of Iran.
● Lut Desert is the 25th largest desert in the world.
● Iran’s Lut desert is home to the hottest recorded spot on the earth’s surface according to NASA’s satellite data of land surface
temperature.
● A Secret Compass expedition team was the first group ever to traverse Iran’s Lut desert on foot, as featured in National Geographic
magazine in May 2016 by award-winning photojournalist Mark Stratton.
● Marco Polo is alleged to have visited the region in 1271, and Wilfred Thesiger visited in 1964.
● As of July 2016, the Lut desert became one of the world’s newest UNESCO-inscribed heritage spots for its unique desert
environment, its rock paintings and its natural sand dunes and formations.
● The terrain and geological features of the Lut desert include unusual sand dunes, wind-sculpted star dunes and salt plains and
polygons, vestiges of former seas and inland lakes.

4. ● The Taklamakan Desert, also known as the “Place of Ruins” or the “Sea of Death”, is the largest desert in China.
● It is thought that the name ‘Taklamakan’ was derived from the Uighur language, in which it means ‘you can get in, but you can’t
get out’. However, another plausible explanation is that it comes from Turki taqlar makan, meaning “the place of ruins”.
● The world-famous silk road connected Central Asia and Europe all the way west along the northern edge of the Taklimakan
Desert, promoting cultural exchanges between the East and the West.

5. ● The Sahara is the hottest desert in the world – with one of the harshest climates.
● The average annual temperature is 30°C, whilst the hottest temperature ever recorded was 58°C.
● The area receives little rainfall, in fact, half of the Sahara Desert receives less than 1 inch of rain every year.
● The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world, and the third largest overall after the Antarctica and the Arctic.
● The Sahara Desert covers an incredible 9.2 million km², which is almost the same size as China, and a total of 8% of the earth’s land
area.
● The Sahara is much more than just sand – in fact, the majority of the Sahara is made up of barren, rocky plateaus, as well as salt
flats, sand dunes, mountains and dry valleys.
● The rivers and streams found in the Sahara are all seasonal, apart from the River Nile.
● There are over 20 lakes in the Sahara, most of which are saltwater lakes. Lake Chad is the only freshwater lake in the desert.
● The word Sahara is derived from the Arabic noun ṣaḥrā meaning “desert”.
● Sahara is also related to the adjective ashar, meaning “desert like”, referring to a reddish colour.
● The Sahara has changed immensely! It used to be lush and green, home to a variety of plants and animals. The change came
approximately 5000 years ago, due to a gradual change in the tilt of the earth. It is thought that the Sahara Desert will become green
again at some point in the future.

6. ● Most of the Mojave Desert stretches across four different states: Southern Nevada, Western Arizona, Southwestern Utah, and
Southeastern California.
● The Mojave is about 25,000 square miles.
● The Mojave Desert is the smallest and driest of all the North American deserts.
● There are many different National Parks in the Mojave Desert. The Mojave National Preserve, the Joshua Tree National Park, and
Death Valley.
● The hottest place in North America is located in the Mojave Desert. It is called “Death Valley.”
● There are two rivers in the Mojave Desert. One, is the Mojave Desert, it runs underground throughout the area. The other is the
Colorado River, and it's in the east running through the desert.
● Scientists call the Mojave Desert a rain shadow desert because the mountains around the area block out all the rain.
● 1750-2000 different species of plants and animals live in this area. About 1/4 are not found anywhere else in the world, one
happens to be the Joshua Tree.
Joshua Tree

7. ● The Arabian Desert covers an area of approximately 900,000 sq. mi. which is over four times the area of France, western Europe’s
largest country.
● It is the second largest desert in the world with only the Sahara being larger.
● It contains many mountains, the highest being Mount Al-Nabi Shu’ayb in Yemen at 3,760 m. Mount Al-Sham in Oman reaches 3,035
m and Mount Al-Lawz in the Saudi Arabian province of Hejaz is 2,580 m high.
● The Rub’al-Khali desert has the world’s largest continuous stretch of sand.
● Oil was not discovered in the region until 1936.
● Although most of the Arabian Desert is in Saudi Arabia, it also extends to include Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman,UAE, Yemen
and Qatar.
● It is the world’s fifth largest desert and Asia’s largest. Ar-Rub’al-Khali (The Empty Quarter) is at its heart, one of the world’s largest
continuous sand dunes.

8. ● The Great Desert of India is a large arid region with a landscape dominated by sand dunes varying in size from 52ft (16m) in the North
to 498ft (152m) in the south.
● The majority of the Thar desert is in India but 15% of it is actually within the borders of Pakistan.
● The age of the Thar Desert is a topic of great controversy, though most geologists agree that it is somewhere in the region of 4000-
10,000 years old.
● About 5,000 years ago at least one ancient civilization lived there with their main civic center being to the North near the Indus river of
Pakistan at the city of Mohenjo-daro.
● The Thar desert does not have any Oasis which is unusual compared to other large deserts. There is a single river that flows
through the desert, the Luni River.
● The Thar Desert is the 18th largest subtropical desert in the world.
Luni River