• There are many deserts around the world.Desert image by J-F Perigois from Fotolia.com
  
  There are deserts present on almost every continent on Earth. While a desert is often believed to be a place that is dry, sandy and hot, that is actually inaccurate. The word desert is actually a more general term referring to any area that receives on average less than 250 millimeters of precipitation a year or where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation. All deserts fall under one of four categories--subtropical, cool coastal, cold winter or polar.
  
  

Sahara

• The Sahara desert is a vast subtropical desert stretching across Northern Africa through the countries of Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and the Western Sahara territory. In total, it spans approximately 3,513,529 square miles and is one of the biggest deserts in the world, after the polar deserts. The Sahara is unique as it is made up of both sandy areas and rocky, mountainous areas. It can be travelled across through a variety of tarmac roads along the coastlines of Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania.
  
  

Namib

• Namib is a cool ,coastal desert, its territory spanning through the countries of Namibia and Angola. It spans approximately 31,274 square miles and is both one of the driest and one of the oldest deserts in the world. An interesting feature of the Namib desert are its sand dunes, located in the southern region. They are the highest standing sand dunes in the world, some reaching as high as 985 feet. The sand dunes are accessible to visitors by gravel road, as well as a free park-and-shuttle service.
  
  

Arctic Desert

• The Arctic Desert is a polar desert and is the second-largest desert in the world, after the Antarctic Desert. It spans 5,289,599 square miles, with territory in the United States (Alaska), Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The Arctic is a desert because its extremely cold climate causes it to receive very little, or sometimes no, precipitation during the year. This region is very remote and hard to reach, but its southern edges, such as its territory in Alaska, northern Scandinavia and parts of its territory in Greenland and Russia, can be accessed by road.
  
  

Colorado Plateau

• The Colorado Plateau is a cold winter desert in the central west of the United States. It is approximately 130,116 square miles in size and is located between several mountain ranges, including the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and the Uinta Mountains and Wasatch Mountains branches of the Rockies in northern and central Utah. The area is easily accessible and is a very popular tourist attraction as it is home to many national parks and monuments--the most famous being the Grand Canyon.