The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a plateau in South America, covering a 600-mile (1,000 km) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world. The Atacama occupies 40,600 square miles (105,000 km2) in northern Chile, composed mostly of salt lakes (salares), sand, and felsic lava flows towards the Andes.
Read more about Atacama Desert: Setting, Aridity, Human Occupation, Astronomical Observatories, Gallery, Protected Areas, Legends
Famous quotes containing the word desert:
“This ripe rebuke, this burgeoning affluence
Mocks me and mocks the desert of my bed.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)