Best Cold Desert

The Gobi Desert is a vast, cold winter desert and brushland region spanning parts of northern China and southern Mongolia. Encompassing roughly 1.3 million square kilometers, its terrain is primarily composed of exposed bare rock rather than sand. The region sits on a high plateau and experiences ex...

The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a series of ice-free valleys in Victoria Land, Antarctica, forming the largest relatively ice-free area on the continent. They constitute one of Earth's most extreme polar deserts, receiving less than 100 millimeters of annual precipitation. Strong katabatic winds prevent...

The Arctic Desert is a polar desert ecoregion covering high-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere, including parts of northern Canada, Greenland, Russia, and Arctic islands. It receives less than 250 millimeters of annual precipitation, mostly as snow. The landscape is characterized by ice caps,...

The Taklamakan Desert occupies approximately 337,000 square kilometers in the Tarim Basin of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is one of the largest shifting sand deserts in the world, with dunes rising up to 300 meters. The desert is flanked by the Tian Shan mountains to the north and t...

The Spiti Cold Desert is a high-altitude arid region in Himachal Pradesh, India, notable for its extreme sub-zero temperatures and ancient Buddhist monasteries.

The Badain Jaran Desert is an arid region located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. Covering an area of approximately 49,000 square kilometers, it is distinguished by a complex system of stationary sand dunes, several of which exceed 400 meters in height. These are among the tallest...

The Patagonian Desert, also known as the Patagonian Steppe, is the largest desert in South America, spanning approximately 673,000 square kilometers. Located primarily in Argentina, it occupies the region east of the Andes mountain range, where it exists as a cold, rain-shadow desert. The harsh, ari...

The Changthang Cold Desert is a high-altitude arid region spanning the Tibetan Plateau and Indian Ladakh, notable for its extreme climate and unique nomadic herding.

The Ladakh Cold Desert is a high-altitude desert located in the northern Indian Union Territory of Ladakh. Situated in the rain shadow of the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges, the region receives very low annual precipitation, resulting in an arid landscape characterized by bare mountains and...

The Great Basin Desert is a cold winter desert spanning approximately 492,000 square kilometers, making it the largest desert in the United States. It covers the majority of Nevada and extends into parts of Utah, California, Oregon, and Idaho. Unlike the hot deserts of the Southwest, the Great Basin...

The Deosai Plains, located in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region, form a high-altitude plateau at approximately 4,100 meters above sea level. The area is designated as Deosai National Park, established in 1993 to protect the Himalayan brown bear. It is among the highest plateaus in the world and rem...

The Alashan Desert, also referred to as the Alxa Desert, is an expansive arid plateau located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. It functions as a broad geographical basin that encompasses several distinct sub-regions, including the Badain Jaran and Tengger deserts. Covering a combine...

The Qaidam Basin is an arid, high-altitude depression located in Qinghai Province in western China, on the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The basin sits at approximately 2,600 to 3,000 meters elevation and contains extensive salt lakes, playas, and mineral deposits, including lithium and pota...

The Tengger Desert is located primarily in the Alxa League of Inner Mongolia, China, covering an area of approximately 36,000 square kilometers. It features extensive sand dunes as well as a number of saline and freshwater lakes, and lies near the upper reaches of the Yellow River. The desert is stu...

The Black Rock Desert is a dry lakebed (playa) in northwestern Nevada, United States, covering approximately 1,000 square kilometers. The flat, hard surface of the playa has made it a venue for land speed record attempts, including the ThrustSSC's supersonic record in 1997. Since 1990, it has been t...

The Dzungarian Basin is a large, arid steppe and semi-desert region situated in northern Xinjiang, China, enclosed by the Altai Mountains to the north and the Tian Shan to the south. Covering an area of roughly 777,000 square kilometers, it forms a crucial part of the Central Asian desert belt and f...

The Gurbantünggüt Desert is a large expanse of sand situated in the Junggar Basin of Xinjiang, China. Covering roughly 48,800 square kilometers, it ranks as China's second-largest desert and is notable for its relatively stable, semi-fixed dunes. Unlike many major deserts, it experiences cold winter...

The Lop Desert is a large, hyperarid salt and sand desert located in the southeastern part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. It surrounds the historical lake basin of Lop Nur, which has largely dried up, leaving extensive salt crusts. Historically, the region served as a challenging...

The Kumtag Desert is an arid expanse situated in the northwestern region of China, spanning across the borders of Xinjiang and Gansu provinces. It is distinguished by its unique feather-shaped dune formations, a rare geographic phenomenon created by the region's specific wind patterns and underlying...

The Alvord Desert is a large, arid playa located in the rain shadow of Steens Mountain in southeastern Oregon, United States. Spanning approximately 260 square kilometers, it is characterized by a dry, cracked lakebed composed of silt and clay, making it one of the flattest geographical features in...

The Transaltai Gobi is a stony desert region located in southern Mongolia, situated south of the Mongolian Altai Mountains. It forms part of the broader Gobi Desert, which spans across northern China and southern Mongolia. The landscape is characterized by barren rocky terrain, gravel plains, and sp...

The Ordos Desert is a semi-arid steppe region on the Ordos Plateau in Inner Mongolia, China, covering approximately 90,000 square kilometers and enclosed by the great bend of the Yellow River. It consists of the Kubuqi Desert to the north and the Mu Us Sandy Land to the south, with underlying geolog...

A semi-arid steppe plateau in south-central Kazakhstan covering about 75,000 km², nicknamed the Starvation Steppe and a key habitat for the saiga antelope.

A sandy desert in Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, China, covering about 42,200 km² and subject to large-scale government afforestation projects in recent decades.

A desert area in Inner Mongolia, China, near the lower Heihe River terminus, encompassing the ancient Juyan Lake basin and notable for archaeological finds from the Han Dynasty period.

A section of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China and adjacent Mongolia, known for extreme aridity and gravel plains lying in the rain shadow of surrounding mountain ranges.

A sandy desert in southern Kazakhstan along the Chu River valley covering roughly 40,000 km², transitioning between the Eurasian steppes and the arid Central Asian interior.

A sandy desert in southeastern Kazakhstan near the Ili River, part of the arid lowlands between the Tian Shan foothills and Lake Balkhash.

Poland's only desert, covering about 32 km² in Silesia, formed primarily by centuries of deforestation and sand quarrying, and now gradually revegetating.