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🏜️ Largest desert overall

Antarctic Desert · about 14.2 million km² (5.5 million sq mi)

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🏜️ Largest desert overall

about 14.2 million km² (5.5 million sq mi)

Antarctic Desert · South Pole region

By the scientific definition — low precipitation — the biggest desert on Earth is the frozen continent of Antarctica, where almost nothing falls as snow and the interior is a polar hyper-arid wasteland.

Record at a glance

RecordLargest desert overall
Feature Antarctic Desert
Measurementabout 14.2 million km² (5.5 million sq mi)
LocationSouth Pole region

Browse the whole World Extremes index for more records like this one.

This record belongs to our Deserts collection, where every deserts in the world is catalogued.

More Deserts & Drylands records

Largest hot desert

Sahara

about 9.2 million km² (3.6 million sq mi) · North Africa

Driest non-polar place

Atacama Desert

some weather stations with no rain on record · Pacific coast of South America

Figure is a widely-cited reference measurement. Stored statically on our server — no external call when you load a page.

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