List of North American deserts

This is a list of North American deserts. There are four major deserts [ [http://www.nps.gov/archive/moja/mojadena.htm North American Deserts] at NPS] , [ [http://www.runet.edu/~swoodwar/CLASSES/GEOG235/biomes/desert/namdesrt.html North American desert biomes] at Rutgers University ] in North America, all located in the western United States and northern Mexico. These are:

*The Great Basin Desert – the largest desert in North America, located primarily in Nevada
*The Mojave Desert – a desert located primarily in southeastern California
*The Chihuahuan Desert – the second largest desert in North America, located in the southwest US and northern Mexico
*The Sonoran Desert – a desert located in the southwest US and northwest Mexico

Additionally, there are smaller deserts within the Columbia Plateau/Columbia Basin, the Snake River Plain, and the Colorado Plateau regions.

Canada is home to a few small "deserts" such as the Nk'mip Desert, which is actually shrub steppe. Another "desert" near Carcross, Yukon is commonly called a desert, but is not a true desert, but an area of northern sand dunes. [http://www.taiga.net/yourYukon/col191.html Northern dunes, not deserts] ]

List of North American deserts

(Listed from north to south)

*Western Canada
** Carcross Desert, small "desert" in the Yukon, only 2.6 kilometers across. It has cold winters and very hot summers. Too humid to be a true desert.
**Fraser Canyon - the landscape of the Fraser Canyon is severely arid from just south of Lytton upstream as far as the city of Williams Lake.
**Thompson Country - the southern Thompson Country, comprising the immediate banks of the Thompson River between the city of Kamloops and the village of Lytton, has a range of desert-like terrain and climates.
**Carberry sandhills, or Spirit Sands, in Spruce Woods Provincial Park, Manitoba. Not a true desert, but the sandy remnant of a glacial river delta.
**Nk'mip Desert, small arid area in British Columbia, Canada. Claimed to be Canada's only "true" hot desert, but actually shrub steppe and, like other "deserts" in BC, is a northward extension of the Columbia Plateau (ecoregion).

*Much of the Columbia Plateau (ecoregion) is desert, such as the
** Channeled Scablands, a desert in the Columbia Basin of eastern Washington

*Most of the Snake River Plain (ecoregion) is sagebrush steppe, but barren lava fields form small deserts, such as
**Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho

*The Wyoming Basin (ecoregion) is dominated by arid grasslands and shrub steppe, but also contains the
** Red Desert (Wyoming)

* The Great Basin is dominated by sagebrush steppe, but contains the
** Alvord Desert, a playa in eastern Oregon
** Owyhee Desert, in northern Nevada, southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon
*** Yp Desert, a portion of the Owyhee Desert in Idaho
** Black Rock Desert, a dry lake bed in northwestern Nevada
*** Smoke Creek Desert, a southern extension of the Black Rock Desert
** Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah
** Tule Desert (Nevada)
** Amargosa Desert, in western Nevada, just east of
** Death Valley, in California (also considered part of the Mojave Desert)

* The Colorado Plateau is dominated by pinyon-juniper woodlands, but contains desert areas such as the
** Painted Desert, Arizona

* Mojave Desert
** Death Valley, California (also considered part of the Great Basin)

* Chihuahuan Desert
** Trans-Pecos Desert, west Texas
**White Sands, unusual gypsum dune field in New Mexico

* Sonoran Desert
** Lower Colorado Desert, California and Arizona
*** Low Desert of Southern California
**** Yuha Desert, Imperial Valley, California
*** Lechuguilla Desert, southwest Arizona
*** Tule Desert (Arizona) and Sonora
*** Yuma Desert, , southwest Arizona
** Gran Desierto de Altar, Sonora, Mexico
** Baja California Desert, Mexico
*** Vizcaíno Desert, central Baja California

ee also

*North American Deserts "in" List of ecoregions in the United States (EPA)
*North American Deserts "in" List of ecoregions in North America (CEC)
*Deserts and xeric shrublands
*List of deserts

References