QuickCheck: Is the Sahara the world's largest desert?

I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.

Anakin Skywalker's awkward attempt at wooing Padmé aside, he does have a point. He knew better than most about the downsides of sand, having been born on the desert planet Tatooine. It was hot and covered in endless sand dunes, much like the deserts on our own planet, Earth.

One of the most famous deserts on earth is the Sahara Desert. Located in North Africa, this vast plain of sand is often thought of as the largest desert on in the world.

However, is this common conception true?

VERDICT:

FALSE

Not only is the Sahara not the largest desert in the world, it isn't even the second largest.

A desert is defined as an area with very little precipitation. In other words, it has everything to do with how much rain a location gets and not its temperature.

So, by definition, the title of the largest desert in the world goes to the polar desert known as Antarctica. Apparently, snow doesn't count.

The land area of the continent at the South Pole measures about 14.2 million sq km, dwarfing the Sahara's 9.4 million sq km. This means that the Arctic in the North Pole, with a surface area of 13.9 million sq km, is the second largest desert, leaving the Sahara with the bronze. The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert; however, it too has experienced the odd snowfall.

ALSO READ: Does the Sahara Desert ever experience snow?

So, either you're getting thrown into a Sarlacc pit on Tatooine or crawling into a Tauntaun carcass on Hoth, just remember that deserts, hot or cold, are just places that don’t get much rain.

REFERENCES

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/deserts/

https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/largest-desert-in-world.htm

https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/the-worlds-largest-deserts