"While lush rainforests and alpine peaks often draw the spotlight, it's the deserts, those vast, windswept expanses of sand, stone, and scrub, that shape nearly a third of the world's land. From the iconic Sahara to the cold deserts of Central Asia, these regions are more than barren voids. They support unique ecosystems, Indigenous cultures, and, more recently, vast renewable energy projects."
"This list draws on desert area estimates from the World Atlas of Desertification, published by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in collaboration with UNEP, which provides global definitions of desert types and aridity zones. Key geographic boundaries were supplemented by data from UNEP-GRID and NASA Earth Observations, which help delineate hyper-arid regions and large desert landscapes. To ensure accuracy at the national level, we also consulted national geospatial reports"
Drylands dominate much of the planet, shaping nearly a third of Earth's land through vast deserts of sand, stone, and scrub. Deserts are defined as hyper‑arid zones with minimal rainfall and account for roughly 6.6% of Earth's land area, while over 40% is classified as broader drylands. Desert regions support unique ecosystems, Indigenous cultures, and an expanding role in renewable energy development. National desert-area estimates derive from the World Atlas of Desertification (European Commission JRC with UNEP) and are supplemented by UNEP-GRID, NASA Earth Observations, and national geospatial and climate-zone mappings. The focus is on hyper‑arid deserts, with Algeria containing about 1.5 million square kilometers of the Sahara.
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