where are the atacama desert located on a map
Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a plateau in South America, covering a 1000-km (600-mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is the driest nonpolar desert in the world.[1][2][3][4] According to estimates, the Atacama Desert occupies 105,000 km2 (41,000 sq mi),[5] or 128,000 km2 (49,000 sq mi) if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included.[6] Most of the desert is composed of stony terrain, salt lakes (salares), sand, and felsic lava that flows towards the Andes.
Sahara The Sahara (UK: /səˈhɑːrə/, /səˈhærə/; Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى‎, aṣ-ṣaḥrāʼ al-kubrá, 'the Great Desert') is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic.[1] Its area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi)[2] is comparable to the area of China or the United States. The name 'Sahara' is derived from a dialectal Arabic word for "desert", ṣaḥra (صحرا /ˈsˤaħra/).[3][4][5][6]