Which desert is the largest in Asia by area?

The Arabian Desert is the largest desert in Asia by area.

It covers roughly 2.33 million square kilometres across most of the Arabian Peninsula, making it Asia’s largest desert and the world’s fourth-largest desert overall. Most of the desert lies in Saudi Arabia, but it also extends into Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, and Kuwait.

The Arabian Desert is a broad geographic region rather than one uninterrupted sea of sand. It contains gravel plains, rocky plateaus, salt flats, and major sand seas. The Rub' al Khali, or Empty Quarter, forms its vast southern section and is the largest continuous sand area within the region.

A common mix-up is the Gobi Desert, which is also enormous but smaller and located farther north across Mongolia and northern China. The Taklamakan is another major Asian desert, but it is smaller still. The Sahara is larger than the Arabian Desert, yet it is in Africa, not Asia. The Arabian Desert’s climate is generally hot and extremely dry, although temperatures can fall sharply at night and some highland areas have cooler conditions.