What is the driest non-polar desert on the planet?

The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a plateau in South America, covering a 1,000-kilometre (600 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is the driest non-polar desert in the world. The Desert spans Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina. It is famous for star gazing because of it's wide open sky with very little 'light pollution.' On the rare occasions that this desert does receive rain, the southern portion explodes with rare, exotic flowers. This phenomena is known as desert in bloom and considered to be one of the most wonderful natural paradoxes.

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17 Comments

Marian Spitzig

Great question and a beautiful picture with the narrative.

Ian Swindale

Although it is not as dry as the Atacama, Namaqualand in the Northern Cape in South Africa bursts into bloom once a year for some 4 weeks and for the rest of the time it is totally dry with very little or no rain.

Player

Wonderful photo.

Char

Billy Babu the story teller , me too

Howard Groopman

"Phenomena" is plural of phenomenon. Same mistake people make with criteria and criterion.

earlepg

Ajay Patel, I tried going there. But lost my way.

Chris Brown

Your question doesn't read correctly. You say "Which POLAR desert", to which the answer would have been Antarctica. But leaving out "polar" the answer you have as correct would be the correct one. Your question is very confusing.