Desert Facts for Kids

The mighty Sahara Desert in Africa is HUGE! It covers about 3.6 million square miles (9.2 million square kilometers).

To help you picture that, the continental United States is about 3.7 million square miles. So, the Sahara is almost as large as the whole USA!

It stretches across 11 different countries, proving deserts aren't just one little patch of sand—they are massive worlds of their own.

Wait, what? Deserts are cold? Yep! The biggest deserts aren't hot—they are polar deserts! Antarctica is the biggest desert on Earth.

It gets so little snow that it qualifies as a desert. The record low temperature measured there was a shocking -89.2°C (-128.6°F) at Vostok Station!

That’s colder than dry ice! These icy landscapes prove deserts are defined by lack of precipitation, not just heat.

The giant Saguaro cactus, an icon of the American Southwest, is basically a giant, living water balloon! It uses its pleated skin to expand.

When the rain comes, a big one can suck up and store over 1,000 gallons of water!

That's like filling up about 15 standard bathtubs with water and storing it inside one plant for a whole year!

Meet the Fennec Fox, the smallest fox on Earth, weighing only 2 to 3 pounds! It lives in the Sahara and surrounding deserts.

Its giant ears, which can grow 4 to 6 inches long, aren't just for hearing bugs under the sand. They are actually radiators!

The blood vessels close to the surface of the ears help release body heat into the air, keeping the tiny fox cool. They can even survive for long periods just by getting water from their food!

While the Sahara is famous for heat, the hottest temperature officially recorded in the area was a whopping 58 degrees Celsius (136°F) back in 1922!

On a normal hot summer day, the average high temperature in the Sahara can easily reach 122°F (50°C).

But here's the flip side: because the air is so dry, the temperature can drop dramatically at night, sometimes reaching below freezing at -6°C!

It’s one of the biggest desert secrets: the camel's hump is NOT a water tank! It’s actually a giant storage unit for energy-rich fat.

This fat can weigh up to 80 pounds! When the camel runs out of food, it burns this fat for fuel.

If a camel uses up its fat, the hump actually becomes limp and droopy, but it re-inflates when the camel eats again!

Sand dunes aren't just small hills; some are gigantic mountains made of sand! Dune 7 in Namibia is famous, having been measured at a staggering 388 meters (about 1,273 feet) tall.

That's almost as tall as the Empire State Building! Even in France, the Great Dune of Pyla can reach 377 feet tall.

These massive structures move several feet every year, pushed along by the desert winds!

Forget the Sahara for a minute—the Namib Desert along the coast of Southern Africa might be the oldest desert in the world!

Scientists estimate it has been arid or semi-arid for an incredible 55 to 80 million years.

That means it was around when the huge dinosaurs were walking the Earth! Talk about ancient history!

You know the sand gets hot, but how hot? In some parts of the Sahara, the sand temperature can hit 80°C (176°F) or even more!

That is way hotter than water boiling for pasta, which is only 100°C (212°F) at sea level!

This is why desert animals have special feet or only come out when the sun goes down.

An oasis is a magical spot in the desert where underground water bubbles up to the surface, making a little pocket of life possible!

Historically, ancient desert peoples like the Tuareg used these spots as vital stops on trade routes that stretched for thousands of miles.

These green areas create microclimates that allow plants, like date palms, to grow, giving people and animals a place to rest and drink.