Introduction

A desert is a hot area of land that gets very little rain—not more than 200 mm a year. Temperatures during the daytime can get as high as 55° C.  At night, deserts cool down , sometimes even below 0° C. 

Deserts cover about  20% of the world’s land. The biggest is the Sahara desert, which is about the same size as Europe. 

Because deserts are very dry only certain kinds of plants and animals can live there.  

The world's deserts
Map : Crates, CC BY-SA 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons
(modified by Klaus Rosmanitz)