largest deserts of the world

The Taklamakan Desert, also known as Taklimakan and Teklimakan, is a desert in southwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, northwest China. It is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains to the south, the Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan (ancient Mount Imeon) to the west and north, and the Gobi Desert to the east.The name may be an Uyghur borrowing of the Arabic tark, to leave alone/out/behind, relinquish, abandon + makan, place. Another plausible explanation suggests it is derived from Turki taqlar makan, describing the place of ruins.The Taklamakan Desert has an area of 337,000 km2 (130,116 sq. mi.), and includes the Tarim Basin, which is 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) long and 400 kilometres (250 mi) wide. It is crossed at its northern and at its southern edge by two branches of the Silk Road as travelers sought to avoid the arid wasteland. It is the worlds second largest shifting sand desert with about 85% made up of shifting sand dunes ranking 18th in size in a ranking of the worlds largest non polar deserts. Some geographers and ecologists prefer to regard the Taklamakan Desert as separate and independent from the Gobi Desert region to its east.

The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which covers large parts of the Southwestern United States in Arizona and California, and of Northwestern Mexico in Sonora, Baja California and Baja California Sur. It is the hottest desert in North America, with an area of 280,000 square kilometers (110,000 sq mi). The western portion of the United States Mexico border passes through the Sonoran Desert.In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran Floristic Province of the Madrean Region in southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic Kingdom of the northern Western Hemisphere. The desert contains a variety of unique and endemic plants and animals, such as the Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) and Organ Pipe cactus (Stenocereus thurberi).The Sonoran desert wraps around the northern end of the Gulf of California, from Baja California Sur (El Vizca

The Colorado Plateau, also known as the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. The province covers an area of 337,000 km2 (130,000 mi2) within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, and northern Arizona. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, and Little Colorado.The Colorado Plateau is largely made up of high desert, with scattered areas of forests. In the southwest corner of the Colorado Plateau lies the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Much of the Plateaus landscape is related, in both appearance and geologic history, to the Grand Canyon. The nickname Red Rock Country suggests the brightly colored rock left bare to the view by dryness and erosion. Domes, hoodoos, fins, reefs, goblins, river narrows, natural bridges, and slot canyons are only some of the additional features typical of the Plateau.

The Colorado Plateau has the greatest concentration of U.S. National Park Service (NPS) units in the country. Among its ten National Parks are Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches, Mesa Verde, and Petrified Forest. Among its 17 National Monuments are Dinosaur, Hovenweep, Wupatki, Sunset Crater Volcano, Grand Staircase Escalante, Natural Bridges, Canyons of the Ancients, and Colorado.

The Karakum Desert, also spelled Kara Kum and Gara Gum (Turkmen: Garagum, Russian: ????????, Kazakh: ???????) is a desert in Central Asia. Its name means Black Sand in Turkic languages. It occupies about 70 percent, or 350,000 km?, of the area of Turkmenistan.The population is sparse, with an average of one person per 6.5 km? (one person per 2.5 square miles). Rainfall is equally sparse, ranging from 70 to 150 mm.Covering much of present day Turkmenistan, the Karakum Desert lies east of the Caspian Sea, with the Aral Sea to the north and the Amu Darya river and the Kyzyl Kum desert to the northeast. In modern times, with the shrinking of the Aral Sea, the extended Aral Karakum has appeared on the former seabed, with an estimated area of 15,440 sq mi/40,000 km?. Although the level of the Aral Sea has fluctuated over its existence, the most recent level drop was caused by the former Soviet Union building massive irrigation projects in the region. Although the North Aral Sea is currently rising, the South Aral Sea is still dropping, thus expanding the size of the desert.