Which place is the world’s largest desert: Antarctica or the Sahara?

Antarctica is the world’s largest desert because it receives extremely little precipitation.

A desert is defined by dryness, not by heat or sand. Antarctica’s interior receives very little annual precipitation, and much of the continent’s water is locked in ice rather than falling as rain or snow. Its area is about 14 million square kilometres.

The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert, covering much of North Africa, but it is smaller than Antarctica. The Arabian and Gobi deserts are also major deserts, yet neither approaches Antarctica’s continental scale.

Antarctica is also the coldest, windiest and driest continent. Its huge ice sheet contains roughly 90% of the world’s ice and about 60% of its fresh water, even though that water is frozen.