Arid Areas Trivia Quiz

Answer: United States

The Great Basin Desert is found over a large part of the state of Nevada in the United States. It also extends into western Utah, as well as eastern California and Idaho. It is one of the deserts in the world that is not hot all year. Rather, it has hot and dry summers with cold winters with some snow.

Answer: China

The Taklamakan Desert (also spelled Taklimakan and Teklimakan) is a desert in Northwest China. It lies in the rain shadow of the Himalayas and is relatively close to Siberia, so is considered a cold climate desert. In the winter, temperatures can reach well below −20 °C (−4 °F), while in summer they can rise up to 40 °C (104 °F).

The Taklamakan Desert is also a "shifting sand" desert. Every year, homes and villages are covered over by the desert sand as it moves across the landscape.

Answer: Australia

The Great Sandy Desert is found in the northwestern part of Western Australia. It is the second largest desert in Australia with an area of 284,993 square kilometres (110,036 sq mi). One of the features of this desert are the ergs that form there. An erg, or sand sea or dune sea, is an area that forms in some deserts that are flat and have little or no vegetation.

As a result, large wave-like dunes form across the surface. Some of the Great Sandy Desert's large ergs have been photographed by satellite.

Answer: Afghanistan

The Registan Desert is an extremely arid area in southwestern Afghanistan. It is made up of red sand hills and sand covered plains. The desert is traveling from west to east and has engulfed many small villages. The shifting of this desert seems to be due to the loss of vegetation that stabilizes the sand. Vegetation loss has occurred from over-harvesting firewood and allowing animals to overgraze grasses and small plants.

Answer: Peru, Chile

The World Wide Fund for Nature suggests that the Atacama Desert ecoregion occupies a continuous narrow strip in the northern third of Chile. However, the National Geographic Society considers the coastal area of southern Peru to be part of the Atacama Desert as well.

The Atacama Desert is one of the driest spots in the world, with weather stations regularly reporting lest than one inch (25 mm) of rain each year. There is evidence that some areas of this desert went without any significant rain from 1570 to 1971.

Answer: Namibia, South Africa and Angola

This African desert has an area of about 80,950 square kilometres (31,200 square miles). It is extremely arid, but some plants and animals are able to survive on an unusual form of moisture. The Namib Desert runs along the coast in southern Africa. Winds from the Atlantic drift in causing fog on many mornings.

Despite having very little rain, the moisture in the fog provides sustenance for some plants and animals who call this desert home, including several species of lizards, arthropods, and some beetles and mammals.

Answer: India, Pakistan

Approximately 85% of the Thar Desert lies in northwestern India, with only 15% lying in Pakistan. The Thar Desert is quite populated for a desert, with many inhabitants engaging in agriculture, livestock farming, industry and mining. The Taj Mahal was built with white marble mined from one area in the Thar Desert.

Answer: Mexico, United States

The Sonoran Desert is found in the southwestern United States/northwestern Mexico. It covers an area of 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 sq mi). Despite being a very hot desert, plenty of people live there. Over seventeen American Indian tribes live on reservations in California and Arizona.

As well, there are a number of indigenous communities in the desert in Mexico. On top of that, the large cities of Phoenix, and Tucson in Arizona, and Mexicali, Hermosillo, and Ciudad Obregón in Mexico bring the human population in this desert into the millions.

Answer: Australia

The Great Victoria Desert is named after Queen Victoria, who was reigning when the area was first explored by British explorers. It is sparsely populated by some Indigenous communities. Few mammals or birds live in this desert, but some lizards do live in the area.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the United Kingdom carried out nuclear weapons tests in the desert at Maralinga and Emu Fields. This has left some areas in the Great Victorian Desert contaminated with plutonium-239 and other radioactive material.

Answer: Mexico, United States

The Chihuahuna Desert lies in northwestern Mexico/southwestern United States. It is in an area where deserts are common, with the Sonora Desert bordering its western edge. According to the World Wild Life Fund for Nature, the Chihuahuna Desert may be the most biologically diverse desert in the world.