Which desert is often called the driest non-polar desert on Earth?

The Atacama Desert is often called the driest non-polar desert on Earth.

It extends along much of northern Chile and reaches into southern Peru. The desert lies between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes, where the cold Humboldt Current limits evaporation and the Andes create a rain shadow. These geographic conditions combine to produce extremely low rainfall.

Some parts of the Atacama have received no measurable rain during individual recorded periods, although rainfall is not equally absent everywhere in the region. Coastal fog, known locally as camanchaca, provides limited moisture and supports specialized plants and animals.

The desert’s clear, dry skies make it an exceptional location for astronomy. Major observatories, including the Very Large Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, operate there. The Atacama is therefore both a natural extreme and a major scientific landscape.