Chihuahuan Desert Mexico

The Chihuahuan Desert is a desert that straddles the U.S. Mexico border in the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau, bordered on the west by the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, and overlaying northern portions of the east range, the Sierra Madre Oriental. On the U.S. side it occupies the valleys and basins of central and southern New Mexico, Texas west of the Pecos River and southeastern Arizona; south of the border, it covers the northern half of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, most of Coahuila, north east portion of Durango, extreme northern portion of Zacatecas and small western portions of Nuevo Leon. It has an area of about 140,000 square miles. It is the third largest desert of the Western Hemisphere and is second largest in North America, after the Great Basin Desert.