What is the world's largest desert by total area?

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

It covers the continent of Antarctica, where extremely low precipitation, intense cold, and powerful winds create desert conditions. Although much of Antarctica is covered by ice, the defining feature of a desert is very little precipitation, not high temperature or the presence of sand.

Antarctica is also the coldest, windiest, and driest continent. Some coastal areas receive more snowfall than the continent’s interior, but the vast polar interior remains exceptionally dry, with precipitation often accumulating as snow over very long periods.

The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert and is often mistakenly called the largest desert overall. The Arabian and Gobi deserts are also major deserts, but their areas are far smaller than Antarctica’s approximately 14 million square kilometres.