Deserts
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7correct to beat the crowd
Explore the vast and mysterious world of deserts with our comprehensive free 97-question trivia quiz with answers. From the Sahara to the Gobi, challenge yourself with questions about desert geography, wildlife, climate, and history. Whether you're a geography enthusiast or just curious about arid landscapes, this quiz will test and expand your desert knowledge.
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Q 01Which of these is the largest hot desert in the world?
Sahara
The Sahara Desert, located in North Africa, is the largest hot desert globally, covering an area comparable to the United States.
Q 02Which non-polar desert is widely considered the driest on Earth?
Atacama
The Atacama Desert in South America receives extremely little rainfall, with some areas experiencing virtually no recorded precipitation, making it the driest non-polar desert.
Q 03Asia's Gobi Desert is classed as which type of desert?
Cold winter
Sitting on a plateau 910–1,520 m up and far to the north, the Gobi sees frost and even snow on its dunes, with winter lows around −21 °C against summer highs near 27 °C.
Q 04Which feature helps desert animals shed excess heat?
Large ears
The fennec fox's oversized ears do double duty: they shed excess heat and pick up the sounds of prey moving underground.
Q 05What is the general term for plants that store water in thickened, fleshy stems, leaves or roots?
Succulents
Succulents keep thickened, fleshy parts as water stores, which is why they thrive in arid climates.
Q 06What phenomenon often creates deserts on the leeward side of mountain ranges?
Rain shadow effect
Rain shadow effect: air descending the leeward slope is compressed and warmed, so it holds its moisture; the Great Basin Desert sits in the Sierra Nevada's shadow.
Q 07What do you call a fertile, watered pocket in the middle of a desert?
Oasis
An oasis's signature plant is the date palm, which forms the canopy under which other crops are grown.
Q 08Which of the following best describes the process of desertification?
The expansion of existing desert areas into formerly fertile land.
The expansion of existing desert areas into formerly fertile land, driven by drought and land misuse; the UN Convention to Combat Desertification was adopted in 1994 to fight it.
Q 09Which two deserts are larger than the Sahara?
Antarctica and the Arctic
Antarctica and the Arctic count as deserts because so little precipitation falls; at 9.2 million square kilometres the Sahara still covers most of North Africa.
Q 10What is the dark reddish-brown to black coating on exposed desert rocks called?
Desert varnish
Desert varnish is a distinctive coating of iron and manganese oxides, along with clay minerals, that forms slowly on stable rock surfaces in deserts.
Q 11In which desert does the giant saguaro cactus grow wild?
Sonoran Desert
Sonoran Desert: wild saguaros grow only in Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora and a sliver of south-eastern California; the Tohono O'odham turn the red fruit into syrup.
Q 12What single measure decides whether a place counts as a desert?
Very low annual precipitation
Very low annual precipitation is the test, not heat: polar regions under permanent ice qualify as deserts, while many hot, humid tropical lowlands do not.
Q 13What is the main advantage of nocturnal activity for desert animals?
Q 21Which desert's Kelso Dunes are famous for their booming 'singing' sand?
Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert: the Kelso Dunes in California's Mojave National Preserve rise about 200 m and give off a low booming hum when dry sand avalanches down their slip faces.
Q 22Desert plants that complete their whole life cycle in a brief spell after rain are called what?
Ephemerals
Ephemerals turn normally bare Namaqualand in South Africa into a carpet of flowers during its brief spring wet season.
Q 23What are dry desert lakebeds that temporarily fill with water after rain called?
Playas
Playas are dry desert lakebeds that flood briefly after rain; the word is Spanish for 'beach', and Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat, is the extreme example.
To avoid heat and so conserve water
To avoid heat and so conserve water: even lions, active day and night, prefer to hunt after dark partly to conserve water.
Q 14Which of these deserts is located in South America?
Patagonian Desert
Bounded by the Andes to the west and the Atlantic to the east, the Patagonian Desert is Argentina's largest and the eighth-largest in the world.
Q 15The formation of 'desert pavement' is primarily a result of what process?
Wind erosion (deflation)
Wind erosion (deflation) blows away the fine sand and silt, leaving a lag of close-packed stones; the surface is called reg in the western Sahara, serir in the east and gibber in Australia.
Q 16Every 20,000 years or so the Sahara flips between desert and what, due to Earth's wobble?
Savanna grassland
Savanna grassland: precession shifts where the North African monsoon falls, so a 'Green Sahara' of grass, lakes and hippos returns on a roughly 20,000-year cycle.
Q 17Which desert is known for holding the record for the highest air temperature ever recorded on Earth?
Death Valley
Death Valley in California, USA, holds the record for the highest air temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth, reaching 134°F (56.7°C) in July 1913.
Q 18How does the kangaroo rat get by in the desert without ever needing to drink?
Metabolic water from seeds plus concentrated urine
Metabolic water from seeds plus concentrated urine: its kidneys express aquaporin 1 along an unusually long loop of Henle, so almost nothing is lost.
Q 19Which of these deserts is found in Southern Africa?
Namib Desert
The Namib Desert is a large arid region in Southern Africa, stretching along the Atlantic coasts of Namibia, Angola, and South Africa.
Q 20Which crescent-shaped sand formation has 'horns' pointing downwind?
Barchan
The steep downwind slip face sits at the sand's angle of repose, about 30–35 degrees, and collisions between barchans spawn new ones from their horns.
Q 24Which continent holds the largest area of hot desert?
Africa
Africa: the Sahara alone covers about 9.2 million square kilometres, and with the Kalahari and Namib the continent holds far more hot desert than Asia or Australia.
Q 25Extremely low temperatures and permanent ice cover characterise which desert type?
Polar
Polar regions get little enough precipitation to count as deserts but are set apart from hot and cold deserts by their very low temperatures and evapotranspiration.
Q 26What is a 'wadi' in a desert environment?
A riverbed that carries water only after heavy rain
Sudden heavy rain turns wadis into flash-flood channels, and deposition is rapid because the water quickly loses speed and seeps into the porous bed.
Q 27What is the primary method by which desert plants like cacti reduce water loss?
Waxy cuticles and spines in place of leaves
Waxy cuticles and spines in place of leaves: spines are modified leaves that also trap still air near the stem and cast a little shade.
Q 28The Great Basin Desert, characterized by cold winters and sagebrush, is located in which continent?
North America
North America: the Great Basin Desert lies between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, a high cold desert whose sagebrush valleys give way to pinyon-juniper woodland higher up.
Q 29What Arabic-derived term names a barren, rocky desert plateau stripped of sand?
Hamada
Hamada is the Arabic term for a hard, barren rocky plateau where wind has carried off the sand; Morocco's Hamada du Draa and Libya's Al Hamadah al Hamra are examples.
Q 30Which desert is often referred to as the 'Empty Quarter' due to its vast, uninhabited sand dunes?
Rub' al Khali
It covers some 650,000 square kilometres across Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE and Yemen, and Ghawar, the world's largest oil field, reaches into its northern edge.