Natural wonders · Curated list
Sahara, Gobi Desert, Kalahari Desert and 22 more, ranked by how much of the world has written about each one.
Most written-about first. Each description summarises the desert's Wikipedia article, which its name links to.
1
Desert on the African continent
Mauritania Morocco Niger Sudan Algeria Chad Egypt Mali Tunisia
A desert across North Africa covering 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi): the world's largest hot desert, and the third-largest desert of any kind, after those of the northern Arctic and Antarctica.
Wikidata · Photo: Project Apollo Archive, Public domain
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2
Desert in East Asia
A large region of cold desert and grassland in North China and southern Mongolia, the sixth-largest desert in the world.
Wikidata · Photo: Christopher Michel from San Francisco, USA, CC BY 2.0
3
Semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa
A big stretch of sandy savanna in Southern Africa, only partly arid, taking in much of Botswana and parts of South Africa and Namibia, 900,000 kmยฒ (350,000 sq mi) in all.
Wikidata · Photo: Emilfarb at English Wikipedia, Public domain
4
Plateau on Pacific coast of South America
A desert plateau on South America's Pacific coast, running along a strip of northern Chile, west of the Andes, 1,600-kilometre-long (1,000-mile). It covers 105,000 kmยฒ (41,000 miยฒ), or 128,000 kmยฒ (49,000 miยฒ) counting the bare lower slopes of the Andes.
5
6
Desert in Xinjiang, China
A desert in northwestern China, in the Tarim Basin of southern Xinjiang, with the Gobi Desert to its east, the Tian Shan range to its north, the Pamir Mountains to its west and the Kunlun Mountains to its south.
7
Desert in Central Asia
Also spelt Qaraqum or Garagum, a desert of Central Asia and the 12th largest in the world. Its name refers to the sand, rich in shale, under its surface.
Wikidata · Photo: Ziegler175, CC BY-SA 4.0
8
Desert in Southern Africa
A desert running along the coast of Southern Africa. Defined most broadly, it extends over 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) beside the Atlantic, through Angola, Namibia and the northwest of South Africa, from Angola's Carunjamba River in the north to the Olifants River in South Africa's Western Cape.
9
Arid region in India and Pakistan
Also called the Great Indian Desert, a dry region in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, spanning Pakistan and India. Covering 264,091 kmยฒ (101,966 sq mi), it is among Asia's biggest subtropical deserts.
Wikidata · Photo: sushmita balasubramani, CC BY 2.0
10
Valley in the Mojave Desert, Eastern California
A desert valley in Eastern California, United States, in the northern Mojave Desert, next to the Great Basin Desert. The World Meteorological Organization names it as the place where the hottest surface temperature on Earth was recorded.
Wikidata · Photo: Photographersnature, CC BY-SA 3.0
11
Desert in Western Australia and South Australia
A thinly populated desert ecoregion and interim Australian bioregion in South Australia and Western Australia.
12
Desert located in Western Asia
Iraq Jordan Oman Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates
A vast desert wilderness of West Asia that covers nearly the whole Arabian Peninsula, 2,330,000 square kilometers (900,000 sq mi) in area, reaching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and from Oman to Iraq and Jordan.
13
Desert in Central Asia
A desert ranked 15th in size worldwide, whose Turkic name translates as 'Red Sand'.
14
Desert in West Asia
Also called the North Arabian desert, the Syrian or Jordanian steppe, the Badiya or Badiyat al-Sham, a region of steppe, semi-desert and desert spread over about 500,000 square kilometers of West Asia, across western Iraq, southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. It takes up about 85% of Jordan's land and 55% of Syria's.
Wikidata · Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0
15
Desert in the southwestern United States
A desert of the Southwestern United States lying in the rain shadow of the Transverse Ranges and the southern Sierra Nevada. Named after the Mohave, an indigenous people, it covers mostly southwestern Nevada and southeastern California, with small parts in Utah and Arizona.
Wikidata · Photo: Fred Morledge, CC BY-SA 2.5
16
Desert in the Arabian Peninsula
Oman Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates
The desert that fills most of the Arabian Peninsula's southern third, about 650,000 kmยฒ (250,000 sq mi), spread over Yemen, the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
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17
Desert in Mexico and the United States
A hot desert and ecoregion of North America, covering part of the Southwestern United States and parts of the northwestern Mexican states of Baja California Sur, Baja California and Sonora. It covers 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 sq mi).
Wikidata · Photo: United States Bureau of Land Management, Public domain
18
North-eastern part of the Sahara Desert
A geographical region making up the northeastern Sahara, from eastern Libya to Egypt's Western Desert and the far northwest of Sudan, approximately 1,300,000 kmยฒ. On medieval maps the name predates that of the Sahara, and parts of it are the Sahara's driest and emptiest regions, which is mainly what distinguishes it from the rest of the Sahara.
19
Desert in Iran, UNESCO Site
A desert of broad salt flats and dunes in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan and Kerman provinces. The 33rd-largest desert in the world, it joined UNESCO's World Heritage List on 17 July 2016.
20
Desert in Northern Western Australia
Australia's second-biggest desert, after the Great Victoria, covering 284,993 kmยฒ (110,036 sq mi). An interim bioregion, it lies in northeastern Western Australia, across the Pilbara and southern Kimberley, and reaches east into the Northern Territory.
Wikidata · Photo: This image was acquired by Landsat 7โs Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) sensor., Public domain
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21
Desert east of the Nile in Sudan and Eritrea
A desert in the east of the Sahara, covering about 400,000 kmยฒ of northern Eritrea and northeastern Sudan, between the Red Sea and the Nile. Rough and rocky, it has some dunes, and many wadis that dry up before they reach the Nile.
Wikidata · Photo: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0
22
Desert in northern Saudi Arabia
Also called simply the Nafud, a desert in the north of the Arabian Peninsula, at 28.30ยฐN 41.00ยฐE, filling a large oval depression. It measures 290 kilometres (180 mi) from end to end and 225 kilometres (140 mi) across, an area of 65,000 square kilometres (25,000 sq mi).
23
Desert in central Iran
Also called the Kavir Desert, a large desert in the middle of the Iranian Plateau. About 800 kilometres (500 mi) long and 320 kilometres (200 mi) wide, it covers about 77,600 kmยฒ (30,000 sq mi), which ranks it 24th among the world's deserts.
Wikidata · Photo: Klรกra Novรกkovรก, CC BY-SA 4.0
24
Desert in Western Australia
A large desert in Western Australia, still mostly almost untouched. Covering about 155,000 square kilometres (60,000 sq mi), it is Australia's fifth largest desert, after the Simpson, Tanami, Great Sandy and Great Victoria deserts.
25
Largest desert in North America
A desert ecoregion covering parts of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. In the US it spreads over much of Far West Texas, the lower Pecos Valley and the middle and lower Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico, and part of southeastern Arizona; in Mexico it covers the central and northern Mexican Plateau.
Every Wikidata item that is a desert, or a kind of desert, and that has its own English Wikipedia article, ranked by the number of Wikimedia sites with a page about it โ Wikipedia's language editions, mostly, and sister projects such as Wikiquote. That counts how many communities independently thought it worth describing, and nobody can buy a place on it. The top 25 are shown.
Wikidata files these under this list's query, but they are not what the list is about:
Fetched from Wikidata on 2026-09-25. Each description is this site's summary of the entry's Wikipedia article, which its name links to: the wording is ours, the facts are Wikipedia's, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. To correct an entry, correct it there; the next refresh carries the change.
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| Country | Cheapest plan | Price | Order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mauritania | 1GB for 7 days | $14.05 | Get it → |
| Morocco | 1GB for 7 days | $2.13 | Get it → |
| Niger | 1GB for 7 days | $6.44 | Get it → |
| Sudan | 1GB for 7 days | $8.59 | Get it → |
| Algeria | 1GB per day | $1.79 | Get it → |
| Chad | 1GB per day | $5.80 | Get it → |
| Egypt | 1GB for 7 days | $2.33 | Get it → |
| Mali | 1GB for 7 days | $7.70 | Get it → |
| Tunisia | 1GB per day | $1.81 | Get it → |
| China | 1GB for 7 days | $1.81 | Get it → |
| Mongolia | 1GB for 7 days | $5.73 | Get it → |
| South Africa | 1GB for 7 days | $2.24 | Get it → |
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A commission on plans bought through these links is what pays for this site. Nothing above depends on it: every entry is chosen and ranked before any price is looked up.
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