Many deserts have very little sand, or at least not what you’d expect. Most deserts are made up of dusty, crumbling earth, tiny pebbles, uncovered rock, and a little sand.
Even the great Sahara Desert, which in the movies looks as though is consists of nothing but miles and miles of huge white sand dunes, actually has sand in only one-seventh of it entire area.
Most other deserts have even less. The average desert is only about one-tenth pure sand. Did you know that about 20 percent of the earth’s land is made up of desert?
The world’s largest desert is the Sahara of North Africa. This monstrous desert stretches over 3.5 million square miles. The desert region of central and western Australia is the next largest, with 1.3 million square miles. This dry area covers just a little less than half of all Australia.
The United States has many deserts, but none can begin to compare in size with these.
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