Atacama Desert Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1000-km (600-mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. The Atacama desert is one of the driest places in the world (the driest being the McMurdo Dry Valleys ) , as well as the only true desert to receive less precipitation than the polar deserts. According to estimates, the Atacama Desert occupies , or if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included. Most of the desert is composed of stony terrain, salt lakes ("salares"), sand, and felsic lava
Sahara Desert (ecoregion) that crosses the ecoregion is the Nile River, which originates in central Africa and empties northwards into the Mediterranean Sea. Some areas encompass vast underground aquifers resulting in oases, while other regions severely lack water reserves. The Sahara Desert features a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification "BWh"). The Sahara Desert is one of the driest and hottest regions of the world, with a mean temperature sometimes over and the average high temperatures in summer are over for months at a time, and can even soar to . In desert rocky mountains such as the Tibesti in Libya or the