where is the american desert located

by Dr. Carlee Brown IV Published 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago

North American Desert, vast, irregular belt of inhospitable terrain that stretches north to south down the western side of the North American continent from southern Oregon and Idaho to northern Mexico.

Full Answer

Where is the Great American desert located?

Great American Desert: An ill-defined, semiarid region of the Great Plains, or, all of the North American deserts combined. Great Sandy Desert: A subdivision of the Great Basin Desert located in southeastern Oregon.

What are the names of the North American deserts?

North American Desert Names & Subdivisions. Great American Desert: An ill-defined, semiarid region of the Great Plains, or, all of the North American deserts combined. Great Sandy Desert: A subdivision of the Great Basin Desert located in southeastern Oregon. Northern Mojave Desert: The Mojave north of Las Vegas,...

How many deserts are there in the United States?

There are four major deserts in the United States, collectively forming the North American Desert. Each of the Great Basin, Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan deserts are located in the Western United States, with the latter two dipping into significant portions of Mexico.

Where is the desert located in Mexico?

It occupies a huge part of Chihuahua state and portions of Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas, Durango, and Coahuila in Mexico. It is the second biggest North American desert and third in the western hemisphere which occupies an area of about 139,769 square miles.

Is there a desert in the USA?

The North American Deserts North America has four major deserts: Great Basin, Mohave, Chihuahuan and Sonoran. All but the Sonoran Desert have cold winters. Freezing temperatures are even more limiting to plant life than is aridity, so colder deserts are poorer in both species and life forms, especially succulents.

Where is the most desert in the US?

The Great Basin Desert is the largest desert area of North America. It is also the most northerly, covering most of Nevada (Ne), the western third of Utah (U) and parts of Idaho (Id) and Oregon (Or).

What states have deserts in the US?

The Great Basin Desert is located between the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Rocky Mountains. It is mostly in the state of Nevada, but also parts of California, Idaho, Utah, and Oregon.

Is Texas a desert?

Although Texas is popularly associated with the U.S. southwestern deserts, less than ten percent of Texas's land area is desert. Most of the population centers are in areas of former prairies, grasslands, forests, and the coastline.

Which state has the most desert?

California is 25% desert. There are three main deserts: the Mojave Desert, the Colorado Desert, and the Great Basin Desert.

What's the biggest desert in the US?

The roughly 200,000-square-mile Chihuahuan Desert — larger than the state of California — stretches across six Mexican states and parts of Texas and New Mexico. It is the largest desert in North America and is located between two of Mexico's largest mountain ranges called the eastern and western Sierra Madre.

How much of Arizona is desert?

About half of Arizona is semiarid, one-third is arid, and the remainder is humid. The Basin and Range region has the arid and semiarid subtropical climate that attracts most winter visitors and new residents.

Is Death Valley a desert?

Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert.

What are the major deserts in the United States?

The continent’s major deserts are associated with the intermontane Basin and Range Province of the western United States, northern Mexico, and the Colorado Plateau region of northern Arizona, southwestern Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah.

When was the North American Desert established?

Scientists, in naming this whole ecological complex, or biome, the North American Desert, are merely echoing the legend of a “Great American Desert” established as early as the 1820s by the vivid reportage of an expedition led by the American pioneer explorer and engineer Stephen H. Long. Britannica Quiz. Quick Quiz: Deserts.

How much rain does the desert get?

Average annual rainfall varies from 6 to 12 inches (150 to 300 millimetres) in the Great Basin Desert, 2 to 6 inches in the Mojave Desert (a low of 2 inches in Death Valley), 10 to 11 inches in the Red and Painted deserts, 8 to 18 inches in the Sonoran Desert, and 12 to 14 inches in parts of the Chihuahuan Desert.

How much snowfall does the Sonoran Desert get?

Precipitation may be seasonal and characteristically is erratic, scattered, or intense. Snowfall of 12 to 24 inches occurs in most of the northern deserts, decreasing to only a trace in the Sonoran Desert. Winds are directional, with speeds averaging seven to nine miles per hour.

How humid is Death Valley?

Average relative humidities are generally less than 50 percent (20 percent for Death Valley), but 10 percent or less is not uncommon. The growing season varies from 90 to 140 days in the northern deserts to more than 300 days along the Sonoran gulf coast and in the Baja Peninsula.

What is the lowest point in the world?

In California near the undefined Great Basin–Mojave border are the sun-scorched landscapes of Death Valley; the valley’s maximum depth of 282 feet (86 metres) below sea level is the continent’s lowest point.

What is the cold desert?

Subscribe Now. Classified as a cold mid-latitude desert is the Great Basin Desert, which lies in the physiographic Great Basin that covers nearly all of Nevada, western Utah, and portions of surrounding states.

What is the Great American Desert?

The term Great American Desert was used in the 19th century to describe the western part of the Great Plains east of the Rocky Mountains in North America to about the 100th meridian. It can be traced to the 1820 Stephen H. Long's scientific expedition which put the Great American Desert on the map. The area is now usually referred to as ...

What is the meaning of the term "desert"?

The concept of "desert". In colonial times, the term "desert" was often used to describe treeless or uninhabited lands whether they were arid or not. By the 19th century, the term had begun to take on its modern meaning. It was long thought that treeless lands were not good for agriculture; thus the term "desert" also had the connotation ...

Where is the Forty Mile Desert in Roughing It?

In Chapters 20 and 27 of Roughing It (1872), Mark Twain speaks of the Great American Desert, but he is applying the term to the Forty Mile Desert of Nevada's Lahontan Valley. A Study in Scarlet (1887) by Arthur Conan Doyle contains a reference to a "desert" in the center of North America:

Who was the first person to describe the deserts of the western hemisphere?

When the region was obtained by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Jefferson wrote of the "immense and trackless deserts" of the region. Zebulon Pike wrote "these vast plains of the western hemisphere, may become in time equally celebrated as the sandy deserts of Africa". His map included a comment in the region, "not a stick of timber". In 1823, Major Stephen Long, a government surveyor and leader of the next official exploration expedition, produced a map labeling the area as the "Great American Desert." In the report that accompanied the map, the party's geographer Edwin James wrote of the region:

Is the High Plains a desert?

While the High Plains are not a desert in the modern sense, in this older sense of the word they were. The region is mostly semi-arid grassland and steppe. Today much of the region supports agriculture through the use of aquifer water irrigation.

What is the Colorado Desert?

California’s Colorado Desert covers more than 7 million acres and is part of the much larger Sonoran Desert. The desert enjoys warmer temperatures than other, higher-elevation deserts, meaning you won't find normally snow dusting this landscape. Wildlife is plentiful throughout the region and includes deer, jackrabbits, bobcat, and the rare desert tortoise. There are many state and national parks in the region, including Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which is known for its wildflower blooms.

What are the most biologically diverse deserts in the world?

The massive Chihuahuan Desert encompasses more than 175,000 square miles and covers most of West Texas, as well as parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of the Mexican Plateau. It is one of the most biologically diverse deserts in the world, playing host to over a thousand species of plants and animals. Spot flowering cacti, shrub-covered valleys and sandy dunes within its borders. Highlights include Big Bend National Park and Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas and Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico.

How many miles of the Sonoran Desert are there?

The Sonoran Desert covers more than 100,000 miles of the American Southwest, including large parts of southern Arizona, southern California, and Mexico.

How big is the Mojave Desert?

Covering less than 50,000 square miles, the Mojave is one of North America’s smallest desert communities, but it definitely packs a punch. Here you'll find Death Valley National Park, the hottest, driest, and lowest national park in the U.S., and Las Vegas, the largest metropolitan area in the Mojave Desert.

What animals live in the desert?

Wildlife is plentiful throughout the region and includes deer, jackrabbits, bobcat, and the rare desert tortoise.

What are the dangers of deserts?

The desert can be cruel and uninviting, with plenty of hazards. Snakes, spiders, and every manner of spiny plants are common. But so are fields of wildflowers, breathtaking sunsets, and ancient rocky towers that beg to be climbed. Here are 10 American deserts that you should not only know, but thoroughly explore.

Where is the La Guajira Desert?

Located in northern Colombia and Venezuela, the La Guajira Desert is populated by xeric scrubland that reaches to the ocean. The region is home to indigenous Wayuu people, and is rich in culture and history. The La Guajira Desert and the surrounding landscapes are wild and isolated, and although tourism is increasing, it is largely focused on a few small pockets of the immense landscape. The extremely isolated Macuira National Nature Park, for example, is like an oasis in the desert and is known for its diversity of bird populations as well as its mountainous terrain.

What is the desert in North America?

North American Desert:The vast arid region between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada of western North America, encompassing all four major American deserts.

What is the desert in Arizona?

Bordered on the south by the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. Mojave Desert: A portion of southern Nevada, extreme southwestern Utah and of eastern California, north of the Sonoran Desert. Sonoran Desert: An arid region covering approximately 100,000 square miles in southwestern Arizona and southeastern California, as well as most ...

What is the name of the elevated portion of the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona?

Arizona Upland Desert:That elevated portion of the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona characterized by Saguaro Cactus.

Why are the deserts called hot?

Three of these deserts -- the Chihuahuan, the Sonoran and the Mojave -- are called "hot deserts," because of their high temperatures during the long summer and because the evolutionary affinities of their plant life are largely with the subtropical plant communities to the south. The Great Basin Desert is called a "cold desert" because it is generally cooler and its dominant plant life is not subtropical in origin.

What is the name of the desert in Utah?

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park exists within the Colorado Desert. Escalante Desert: A subdivision of the Great Basin desert just west of Cedar Breaks in southwestern Utah. Great American Desert:An ill-defined, semiarid region of the Great Plains, or, all of the North American deserts combined. Great Sandy Desert: Asubdivision ...

What is the Red Desert?

Red Desert: The semiarid region of southwestern Wyoming, sometimes considered an extension of the Great Basin Desert. Salton Troughis defined by the US Geological Survey as a a basin existing east of the Peninsular Ranges of Southern California and west of the San Andreas Fault in the vicinity of the Salton Sea.

What determines the community of plants in a desert?

Plant communities, in turn, are determined by the geologic history of a region, the soil and mineral conditions, the elevation and the patterns of precipitation.

What is the North American Desert?

The "North American Desert" is also the term for a large U.S. Level 1 ecoregion (EPA) of the North American Cordillera, in the Deserts and xeric shrublands biome (WWF). The continent's deserts are largely between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Madre Oriental on the east, and the rain shadow -creating Sierra Nevada, Transverse, ...

What is the largest desert in North America?

The Chihuahuan Desert is the largest hot desert in North America, located in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. Its total area is 140,000 sq mi (360,000 km 2 ).

What is the western arid region?

The 'western arid region' is east of and (except for Mojave sky islands) discontiguous from the Mojave Desert, unlike the southwestern Great Basin deserts adjacent with ecotones to the northern Mojave Desert.

What are the arid regions of North America?

Western arid regions of North America. The separately defined western arid regions of North America are continental regions of aridity based on available water in addition to rain shadow -diminished rainfall and which have many non-desert shrub-steppe (EPA) and xeric shrublands (WWF) in addition to desert ecosystems and ecoregions.

What is the name of the desert in Idaho?

Y P Desert, a portion of the Owyhee Desert in Idaho. Oregon High Desert, aka "Great Sandy Desert", eastern Oregon. Alvord Desert, a dry lake bed. Northwest Lahontan subregion in Nevada-part of the Northern Basin and Range (ecoregion) Black Rock Desert, a dry lake bed.

What is the smallest desert in the world?

Chihuahuan Desert. (Listed from north to south) Yukon - Carcross Desert, smallest desert in the world. Washington – British Columbia – Idaho – Wyoming – Oregon – Nevada. Much of the Columbia Basin is desert, such as the. Channeled Scablands, a desert in the Columbia Basin of eastern Washington.

Which desert is the coldest?

The largest cold desert is the Great Basin Desert, which encompasses much of the northern Basin and Range Province, north of the Mojave Desert.

What are the deserts in North America?

Which Deserts Are In North America? The Joshua tree is one of the unique species of the Mojave Desert. North America is the world’s third largest continent occupying an area of about 9,400,000 square miles. The continent has many deserts which receive less than 10 inches of rainfall annually. These deserts are largely situated between ...

Where is the desert in California?

It is an arid-shadow desert that is primarily situated in southern Nevada and southeastern California. A smaller part of the desert extends into Arizona and Utah. The desert has about 2,000 plant species including the Joshua trees.

What is the Chihuahuan Desert?

Chihuahuan Desert is an ecoregion and desert designation occupying parts of southwestern US and northern Mexico. It covers a considerable part of western Texas, lower Peco Valley, and the Rio Grande, and a small portion of Mexican Plateau and Arizona. It occupies a huge part of Chihuahua state and portions of Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas, Durango, and Coahuila in Mexico. It is the second biggest North American desert and third in the western hemisphere which occupies an area of about 139,769 square miles. The Chihuahuan Desert is a rain-shadow desert with two mountain ranges covering it, the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Sierra Madre, Occidental which block the moisture from the Mexican Gulf and the Pacific Ocean. The desert has only one rainy season during summer from June to October. The average temperature in the Chihuahuan Desert is about 75°F with the valley and lower elevation regions having extremely high temperatures.

What is the Great Basin Desert?

The Great Basin Desert is a temperate desert with snowy winters and dry, hot summers. It is situated in the Great Basin right between the Wasatch Range and the Sierra Nevada. It is one of the big biologically defined deserts in the continent that spans a considerable part of Nevada and then stretch into Idaho, eastern California, and western Utah. The desert has broad valleys which are surrounded by numerous parallel mountainous ranges. The desert has over 33 peaks whose summits are over 9,800 feet high, but its valleys have an elevation of over 3,900 feet. The biological community of the region varies with altitude from the Pinyon-juniper forests through the rolling sagebrush valleys to the lower salty dry lakes. The variation between the peaks and valleys established an array of habitat niches with numerous isolated unique animals and plant species populations. Over 600 vertebrate species are living in the Great Basin Desert. About 63 of these were identified as vertebrates of conservative concern because of their contracting territories. The desert’s climate starts with the 14,000 feet Sierra Nevada which casts a huge rain-shadow over the region. The humid weather from the Pacific Ocean loses its moisture as it blows over the steep mountain. The annual precipitation in the east averages at 12 inches while the west receives about 9 inches of rainfall. The terrain is extremely mountainous, and the temperature varies depending on the altitude. The temperature reduces by 3.6°F for every 1,000 feet gained, which translates to a difference of about 30°F between the valley floors and the summit of the mountains on any given day.

What are the deserts in Arizona?

The sub-regions of the desert include the Yuma Desert in southwest Arizona, the Colorado Desert in southeast California, and the Gran Desierto de-Altar in Mexico which stretches over 770 square miles of the mountainous region and desert.

How many species of plants are there in the Sonorant Desert?

The sonorant Desert has over 2,000 native-plant species, 1,000 bee species, 30 native fish species, 100 reptile species, 20 amphibian species, and 350 bird species. The only jaguar population in the United States lives in this desert right near the American- Mexican boundary. Some of the plants which are adapted to the harsh environmental ...

Where is the Sonoran Desert located?

The Sonoran Desert occupies a large part of Baja California Sur, Baja California, and Sonora in Northwestern Mexico and California and Arizona in the southwestern parts of the US. The desert occupies an area of about 100,000 square miles. The western part of the Mexico-United States boundary passes through this desert. The sub-regions of the desert include the Yuma Desert in southwest Arizona, the Colorado Desert in southeast California, and the Gran Desierto de-Altar in Mexico which stretches over 770 square miles of the mountainous region and desert. Other sub-regions include Yuha Desert in Imperial Valley, California, Tonopah Desert situated west of Phoenix, and Lechuguilla Desert which lies near the Mexican-United States boundary in Arizona. The sonorant Desert has over 2,000 native-plant species, 1,000 bee species, 30 native fish species, 100 reptile species, 20 amphibian species, and 350 bird species. The only jaguar population in the United States lives in this desert right near the American- Mexican boundary. Some of the plants which are adapted to the harsh environmental conditions in this desert belong to the legume, cactus, palm, and agave families.

What is the habitat of the Southwestern United States?

If you were to travel around the United States, you would encounter a variety of different habitat types, including rain forests, mountains, coastal areas, plains and deciduous forests. In the Southwestern United States, the majority of the land is considered desert. Deserts are defined as regions with very low rainfall, usually less than 25 centimeters of rain per year.

Why do deserts form?

The formation of deserts in the Southwestern United States is also a result of rain shadow zones, which are the downwind sides of mountains that receive limited rainfall. As warm, moist air passes over a mountain range, it cools and expands, which causes condensation and precipitation. This leaves the air that moves down the other side ...

How high can a plateau be above sea level?

Plateaus can reach over 1,500 meters above sea level and are very vulnerable to erosion due to their high level of exposure to the natural elements. Over time, as a result of erosion from moving water or wind, a plateau can be transformed into different types of geologic features.

What is a mesa?

A mesa is a broad, flat-topped hill with cliff edges. Mesas are basically a small, isolated portion of elevated land that was once connected to the larger plateau, but now stands separated. If erosion of a mesa continues, it will eventually break up into smaller areas of land.

What is the Colorado Plateau?

Colorado Plateau. The Colorado Plateau is one of the two desert regions in the Southwestern United States. This region is centered around a spot known as the Four Corners, where you can stand in Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico all at once!

What is the Basin and Range Province?

The Basin and Range Province is the other major desert region in the Southwestern United States. This region covers the majority of Nevada and portions of Southern California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and the western tip of Texas. The region is dominated by mountain ranges that are separated by flat valley floors.

Why is the desert at the latitude line so dry?

Land near this latitude line is prone to desert conditions due to global air circulation patterns that bring in very dry air. This dry air gives the region the general characteristics of having a great deal of sunlight, minimal rain and high levels of evaporation.

Overview

The term Great American Desert was used in the 19th century to describe the part of North America east of the Rocky Mountains to about the 100th meridian. It can be traced to Stephen H. Long's 1820 scientific expedition which put the Great American Desert on the map.
The area is now usually referred to as the High Plains, and the original term is n…

The concept of "desert"

In the past, the term "desert" had two somewhat incompatible meanings. It was sometimes used to describe any uninhabited or treeless land whether it was arid or not, and sometimes to specifically refer to hot and arid lands, evoking images of sandy wastelands. It was long thought that treeless lands were not good for agriculture, thus the term "desert" also had the connotation of "unfit for farming". By the 19th century, the term had begun to take on its modern meaning.

Description

Settlement and development

The region's relative lack of water and wood affected the development of the United States. Settlers heading westward often attempted to pass through the region as quickly as possible, on the way to what was considered to be better land farther west. These early settlers gave telling names to the various streams of the region, such as "Sweetwater Creek" or "Poison Creek". Because it was not considered desirable, the area became one of the last strongholds of indepe…

In popular culture

• A Study in Scarlet (1887) by Arthur Conan Doyle contains a reference to a "desert" in the center of North America: In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a barrier against the advance of civilisation. From the Sierra Nevada to Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence. Nor is Nature always in one mood through…

External links

• Staff (ndg) "Country drained by the Mississippi, western section", Kansas Historical Society