Question 5: the correct answer is Sahara. Did you get it right? Score 1 point.
Question 6 of 10
Which river pours the most water into the sea?
Why, in question 5: What is the largest hot desert in the world?
The answer is the Sahara, in northern Africa, with about 9 million square kilometers, an area similar to that of Brazil. Counting cold deserts, the largest of all is Antarctica.
Sand is only one part of the desert
Contrary to the common image, most of the Sahara is not covered by sand dunes. Stone and gravel plains, mountains and plateaus occupy much of the desert.
Temperatures vary greatly between day and night. With no clouds and dry air, the daytime heat escapes quickly after the sun sets.
Even there there is life: camels, fennec foxes with huge ears that help them lose heat, and plants that wait years for a rain to sprout.
The driest desert in the world, however, is not the Sahara but the Atacama, in Chile, where some places go years without a drop of rain.
The Sahara stretches across more than ten countries, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. Peoples who have lived in it for centuries, such as the Tuareg, crossed the desert in camel caravans, carrying salt and other goods.
