What is the largest hot desert in the world, located in Africa?

The largest hot desert in the world, located in Africa, is the Sahara Desert.

The Sahara stretches across roughly 9.2 million square kilometres of North Africa, making it the largest hot desert on Earth and the third-largest desert overall. It extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean region southward toward the Sahel.

Despite its reputation as an endless sea of sand, much of the Sahara consists of rocky plateaus, gravel plains, mountains, and dry valleys. Sand seas called ergs occupy only part of the desert. The region also contains isolated oases, where groundwater supports settlements, agriculture, and wildlife.

The word Sahara comes from the Arabic ṣaḥrāʾ, meaning “desert.” The Gobi Desert is sometimes confused with it because the Gobi is also enormous, but the Gobi is a cold desert in Asia. Antarctica is technically the world's largest desert overall because deserts are defined by very low precipitation, not by heat. The Sahara's intense dryness is strongly linked to descending air in the subtropical high-pressure belt.