Although most deserts, such as the Sahara in North Africa and the deserts of the southwestern US, Mexico, and Australia, occur at low latitudes, another kind of desert, cold deserts, occur in the basin and range area of Utah and Nevada and in parts of western Asia.
Despite being an integral part of Earth's landscape, deserts are slowly increasing due to irrational human actions and global warming, leading to land degradation.
Check out Sputnik's gallery of the most striking examples of the human impact on nature and the most beautiful photos of the terrifying power of the desert.
A car covered with sand in the town of Boumdeid in Mauritania. Mauritania is mostly covered by desert, with only its western regions around the coast of the Atlantic Ocean having some vegetation.
The Chara Sands is a small desert 3 kilometres wide by 6 kilometres long in Siberia near the Kodar and Udokan mountain ranges. According to scientists, the desert was formed during the last glacial period 55,000 to 100,000 years ago. The sands are a former extinct lake formed by runoff from the Sakukan glacier.
A man walks in the Assaba Desert in the Kiffa region of Mauritania where a forest once stood. Mauritania is mostly covered by desert, with only its western regions around the coast of the Atlantic Ocean having some vegetation. .
Tourists ride camels on the edge of a desert that is located near the ancient Chinese city of Dunhuang. Dunhuang is located on the border of the Gobi Desert and was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road. The city is best known for the nearby Mogao Caves.
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© AP Photo / Eugene Hoshiko
A child walks along a sand dune in Wenxian, the Gansu Province of China, where irrational farming has led to desertification. Part of Gansu's territory is located in the Gobi Desert.
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© AP Photo / Hani Mohammed
A shepherd leads a herd of goats through a drought-damaged dam on the outskirts of Sanaa, Yemen. Yemen's mountainous interior area is surrounded by an upland desert to the north along the border with Saudi Arabia.
The 2020 Dakar Rally was held in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. The rally pits drivers not only against one another but also against some of the most extreme terrain in the world.
One of the most popular and mysterious places in Tunisia is, without a doubt, the Sahara Desert which takes up about 30% of the area of Africa and is the largest on Earth.
Residents of a Senegalese village have managed to stop the desert from growing by plating three hectares of trees. The so-called Great Green Wall project that was presented more than 10 years ago has become very popular in Africa. The project's goal is to plant a wall of trees, 4,300 miles long and 9 miles wide, across the African continent, from Senegal to Djibouti.
The crew of the sports team "KAMAZ-master" at the 2019 Dakar Rally passes through the desert in Peru, South America. The event started in Lima, Peru on 6 January and finished there on 17 January after 10 stages.
A desert around the salt lake Chott el Djerid in Tunisia. The name of the lake can be translated from the Arabic into English as the "Lagoon of the Land of Palms".
The village of Kuzomen is almost engulfed by the Kuzomen Sands in the Murmansk Region, Russia.
Forest fires in Zaragoza, Spain have caused major desertification in the region. Major forest fires caused by the hot weather spread across Spain in 2019.
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© AP Photo / Greg Baker
Desert sands are seen near Lhasa or Chengguan in the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.
