1. True or false: deserts are considered one of Earth’s major ecosystems.
Answer: true.
2. What is the name of the largest desert in the world?
Answer: Antarctica! It is the world’s coldest desert, and is considered a desert due to minimal rainfall and snowfall.
3. What is the name of the largest hot desert in the world?
Answer: the Sahara desert. It is located in North Africa and covers an expansive area of around 3.32 million square miles.
4. What is the name of the famous Asian desert that translates from Mongolian into English to mean “waterless place”?
Answer: the Gobi Desert.
5. What desert located in Northern Chile is considered the driest place on Earth?
Answer: the Atacama Desert. It is considered the driest place on Earth despite being located right next to the Pacific Ocean!
6. True or false: the Sonoran Desert is mostly located in Mexico.
Answer: true. Parts of the Sonoran Desert are also found in the United States, namely in the states of California and Arizona.
7. True or false: the Mojave Desert is one of North America’s “Big Four” Deserts
Answer: true. The others are the Great Basin, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan deserts.
8. What is the name of the largest desert located in North America?
Answer: the Chihuahuan Desert. Most of this desert is located in Mexico but parts of it span the United States.
9. True or false: the Libyan Desert comprises a major part of the Sahara Desert.
Answer: true. This desert can reach temperatures of 122°F and is home to sand dunes hundreds of feet tall.
10. What is the name of the only “cold” desert located in the United States?
Answer: the Great Basin Desert.
11. Which African desert’s name translates into English to mean “an area where there is nothing”?
Answer: the Namib Desert. Its name originates from the Nama language.
12. What is the name of the desert region that comprises the largest part of the Arabian Desert?
Answer: the Rub’ al-Khali. It is the world’s largest area of continuous sand.
13. The Kyzylkum Desert is located in which two central Asia countries?
Answer: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It is located southeast of the Aral Sea.
14. The Taklamakan Desert is one of the world’s largest sandy deserts and located in which country?
Answer: China. It is specifically found in Southwest Xinjiang.
15. What is the name of the desert that comprises around 70% of Turkmenistan?
Answer: the Karakum Desert.
16. What is the name of the largest desert located in Australia?
Answer: the Great Victoria Desert. It is home to many different species including the malleefowl or princess parrot!
17. What is the name of the second largest desert in Australia?
Answer: the Great Sandy Desert. It is mostly centralized in Western Australia.
18. True or false: certain parts of the Arctic are considered polar deserts.
Answer: true. These parts hardly receive precipitation and can reach severe, below freezing temperatures.
19. True or false: there are lakes in the Sahara Desert.
Answer: true. For example, the Lakes of Ounianga are eighteen interconnected lakes located in the Sahara Desert.
20. What is the name of the fifth largest desert located in Australia?
Answer: the Gibson Desert. It is specifically found in Western Australia.
21. Which desert located in India and Pakistan is also called “the Great Indian Desert”?
Answer: the Thar Desert. It is also considered the world’s ninth largest hot desert.
22. What is the name of the desert that comprises ~85% of the country of Jordan?
Answer: the Syrian Desert. It covers 55% of Syria.
23. True or false: the Gobi Desert is called a rain shadow desert.
Answer: true. This means that it receives minimal rainfall because tall mountains block the clouds.
24. What is the name of the desert that covers over 70% of Botswana in Africa?
Answer: the Kalahari Desert. It covers about 360,000 square miles of land and transcends nine countries in Africa.
25. The Colorado Desert forms a portion of which other desert in the United States?
Answer: the Sonoran Desert.
About the Author
Yasmin is a McMaster University graduate and Program Coordinator at SCIFAA. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Sustainable Chemistry and a Minor in Environmental Sciences.
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