The Sahara

desert · Africa · huge

Truly enormous. The Sahara covers about 9.2 million square kilometers, almost as big as the entire United States or China.

Across North Africa. It spans the northern part of Africa, touching many different countries from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

Record holder. It's the largest hot desert in the world, and the third-largest desert overall after the icy deserts of Antarctica and the Arctic.

Cold deserts too. A desert is defined by how little rain it gets, not by heat. That's why frozen Antarctica counts as a desert and is even bigger than the Sahara!