List of North American deserts

Guadalupe Mountains in Texas 2006

Black Rock Desert, northwest Nevada, a dry lake in the Great Basin Desert

Aerial photo of the Painted Desert in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

A geological syncline in the Mojave Desert near Barstow, California

Unusual gypsum dunes at White Sands National Monument in the Chihuahuan Desert

Saguaro (detail), icon of the Sonoran Desert. Photo by Ansel Adams, c.1941

Feral horses run across a Sagebrush steppe, Tule Valley, Utah

View of Indian Wells Valley, part of the Mojave (high) desert near Ridgecrest, California

This list of North American deserts identifies areas of the continent which receive less than 10 in (250 mm) annual precipitation.

There are three major hot and dry deserts in North America, all located in the Western United States and Northern Mexico.^[2] These are:

• The Chihuahuan Desert – the largest desert in North America, located in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico
• The Sonoran Desert – a desert located in the Southwestern United States and Northwest Mexico. It is the second largest desert in North America.
• The Mojave Desert – the hottest desert in North America, located primarily in southeastern California

Additionally, a large cold desert, the Great Basin Desert, encompasses much of the northern Basin and Range Province, north of the Mojave Desert.

Other smaller cold deserts lie within the Columbia Plateau/Columbia Basin, the Snake River Plain, and the Colorado Plateau regions.

Canada has a few small "deserts" such as the Nk'mip Desert, which is actually shrub steppe. Another "desert" near Carcross, Yukon is commonly called a desert, but it is not a true desert, rather an area of northern sand dunes.^[3]

Full listing

(Listed from north to south)

• Western Canada
  • Carcross Desert, small "desert" in the Yukon, only 2.6 kilometers across. It has cold winters and very hot summers. Too humid to be a true desert.
  • Fraser Canyon - the landscape of the Fraser Canyon is severely arid from just south of Lytton upstream as far as the city of Williams Lake.
  • Thompson Country - the southern Thompson Country, comprising the immediate banks of the Thompson River between the city of Kamloops and the village of Lytton, has a range of desert-like terrain and climates.
  • Nk'mip Desert, small arid area in British Columbia. Claimed to be Canada's only "true" hot desert, but actually shrub steppe and, like other "deserts" in BC, is a northward extension of the Columbia Plateau (ecoregion).

• Washington - Idaho - Wyoming - Oregon
  • Much of the Columbia Plateau (ecoregion) is desert, such as the
    • Channeled Scablands, a desert in the Columbia Basin of eastern Washington
  • Most of the Snake River Plain (ecoregion) is sagebrush steppe, but barren lava fields form small deserts, such as
    • Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho
  • The Wyoming Basin (ecoregion) is dominated by arid grasslands and shrub steppe, but also contains the
    • Red Desert (Wyoming)
  • Owyhee Desert, in southwestern Idaho, northern Nevada, and southeastern Oregon.
    • Yp Desert, a portion of the Owyhee Desert in Idaho
  • Alvord Desert, a dry lake in eastern Oregon
  • Oregon High Desert, aka "Great Sandy Desert", eastern Oregon

• Great Basin Desert
  • Nevada, dominated by sagebrush steppe
    • Black Rock Desert, a dry lake bed in northwestern Nevada
    • Forty Mile Desert, Nevada
    • Smoke Creek Desert, Nevada (980 sq mi)
  • Utah
    • Escalante Desert, Utah (3,270 sq mi)
    • Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah
    • San Rafael Desert, the drier portions of the San Rafael Swell
    • Sevier Desert surrounds the intermittent, salty Sevier Lake

• Colorado Plateau
  • Colorado, dominated by pinyon-juniper woodlands, but contains desert areas where unfavorable soil conditions exist:
    • Bisti Badlands Desert, New Mexico
    • Painted Desert, Arizona

• Mojave Desert
  • California (the High Desert); and parts of western Arizona and southern Nevada.
    • Death Valley, California
  • Amargosa Desert, Nevada

• Sonoran Desert
  • Colorado Desert, Southern California (the Low Desert)
    • Yuha Desert, Imperial Valley, California
  • Yuma Desert, southwest Arizona
  • Lechuguilla Desert, southwest Arizona
  • Tule Desert (Arizona) and Sonora, Mexico
  • Gran Desierto de Altar, Sonora, Mexico
  • Baja California Desert, State of Baja California, Mexico
    • Vizcaíno Desert, central State of Baja California, Mexico

• Chihuahuan Desert
  • Trans-Pecos Desert, west Texas
  • White Sands, unusual gypsum dune field in New Mexico

See also

• North American Deserts in List of ecoregions in the United States (EPA)
• North American Deserts in List of ecoregions in North America (CEC)
• List of deserts
• Semi-arid climate
• Deserts of California
• Great American Desert
• Desert of Maine

References