What is the name of the world’s largest desert by area?

The Antarctic Desert is the world’s largest desert by area.

A desert is defined by very low precipitation, not by heat or the presence of sand. Antarctica qualifies because most of the continent receives little annual precipitation, especially in its interior. With an area of roughly 13.8 million square kilometres, the Antarctic Desert is larger than the Sahara.

The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert, covering much of North Africa. This distinction explains a common mix-up: people often use “desert” to mean a hot, sandy landscape, but polar deserts can be covered by ice and snow. Antarctica’s ice sheet stores about 90 percent of the world’s surface freshwater.

The continent’s interior is extremely cold, dry, and windy. Some valleys in the McMurdo Dry Valleys receive almost no snowfall and contain exposed rock rather than continuous ice. These conditions make Antarctica an important natural setting for studying climate, geology, and the limits of life.