World's Largest Deserts by Area

About This Dataset

Deserts ranked by total surface area in millions of square kilometres. The Antarctic Desert is the world's largest desert by area at 14.2 million square kilometres — a fact that surprises most people, as the common conception of deserts as hot and sandy excludes the polar deserts, which are defined by extremely low precipitation rather than high temperature. The Sahara is the largest hot desert and third largest overall.

✨ AI Insight

The data reveals a striking contrast between the polar and hot deserts, with the Antarctic and Arctic Deserts dominating the rankings at 14.2 and 13.9 million km² respectively. This highlights a common misconception that deserts are primarily hot, as the Sahara, despite being the largest hot desert, is significantly smaller at 9.2 million km². The vast areas of the Antarctic and Arctic Deserts can be attributed to their unique climatic conditions, characterized by low precipitation rather than high temperatures. The remaining deserts, such as the Arabian (2.3 million km²) and Gobi (1.3 million km²), are considerably smaller, indicating a clear hierarchy in desert sizes that challenges traditional perceptions.

Source: Wikipedia

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Antarctic Desert leads with 14 in All Time.

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Average value in All Time: 5 · median: 2.

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Gap in All Time: Antarctic Desert is 25.4× larger than Kalahari Desert (Africa).

World's Largest Deserts by Area

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Data Insights Below

Data Insights

Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart

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Data Points

8 categories · 1 year

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Top Value

14.20

Antarctic Desert

Area (Million km2) · All Time

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Metrics

Area (Million km2)

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Period

All Time

Single year snapshot

Rankings & Full Data

8 records · Area (Million km2) · ranked by All Time

✓ 8 sourced

#	Category	All Time
🥇	Antarctic Desert	14.20
🥈	Arctic Desert	13.90
🥉	Sahara (Africa)	9.20
4	Arabian Desert (Asia)	2.30
5	Gobi Desert (Asia)	1.30
6	Patagonian Desert (South America)	0.67
7	Great Victoria Desert (Australia)	0.65
8	Kalahari Desert (Africa)	0.56